One of My All-time Favorite Quotes

Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec,

Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089

The great danger facing all of us... is not that we shall
make an absolute failure of life, nor that we shall fall into
outright viciousness, nor that we shall be terribly unhappy,
nor that we shall feel [that] life has no meaning at all -- not
these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive
life's greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss
its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to tender the
most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the
light of the Presence of God -- and be content to have it so --
that is the danger: that some day we may wake up and find that
always we have been busy with husks and trappings of life and
have really missed life itself. For life without God, to one
who has known the richness and joy of life with Him, is
unthinkable, impossible. That is what one prays one's friends
may be spared -- satisfaction with a life that falls short of
the best, that has in it no tingle or thrill that comes from a
friendship with the Father.

... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Sermons