Friday, July 28, 2017

Share-a-Tea July Check-In

  • What are you currently reading for the challenge? 
  • Have you finished any books for this challenge this month?
  • Is there a book you're looking forward to starting next month?
  • Want to share any favorite quotes? It could be from your current read. It could be about reading. It could be about drinking tea. 
  • What teas have you enjoyed this month? 
  • Do you have a new favorite tea?
What I'm currently reading for the challenge:

ESV Reformation Study Bible. Edited by R.C. Sproul. Reformation Trust. 2560 pages. [Source: Gift/Bought]

MEV Thinline. Passio. 2014. 1184 pages. [Source: Bought]

The Wretched (Les Miserables) Victor Hugo. Translated by Christine Donougher. 1862/2013. 1456 pages. [Source: Bought]

Great Expectations. Charles Dickens. 1860/2016. Macmillan Collector's Library. 640 pages. [Source: Library]


Books I've Finished This Month:


RSV Bible. 1977. Oxford University Press. 1904 pages. [Source: Gift]

Looking forward to...:
  • Finishing Les Miserables
  • Finishing Great Expectations
Favorite quotes:

From Les Miserables
  • True or false, what is said about men often figures as large in their lives, and above all in the fate that befalls them, as what they do.
  • Man exists in the flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it around with him and gives in to it.
  • To sin as little as possible, that is the law of mankind. Not to sin at all is the angel’s dream. Everything earthly is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitational force.
  • Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers. Vices are the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. Never mind what endangers our life or our purse! Let’s be mindful only of what endangers our soul.
  • To put an end to abuses is not enough, attitudes must change.
  • He did not study God, he yielded to the radiance of God.
  • But it is no more possible to pray too much than it is to love too much;
  • ‘You didn’t have to tell me who you were. This isn’t my house, it’s the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not ask whoever enters whether he has a name but whether he is in distress. You’re in distress, you’re hungry and thirsty: you’re welcome here. And don’t thank me, don’t say I’m inviting you into my home. No one is at home here except whoever needs a refuge. I tell you, a passing visitor, this is your home more than mine. Everything here is yours. Why should I need to know your name? Besides, even before you told me, I already knew your name.’ The man eyes widened in astonishment. ‘Really? You knew me by name?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the bishop, ‘by the name of “Brother”.’
  • The good Lord has given indigestion the task of teaching our stomachs a lesson. And remember this: every one of our passions, even love, has a stomach that mustn’t be overfed.
  • The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that you are loved, loved for yourself, better still, loved despite yourself.
  • The mind is no more to be prevented from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to the shore. For the sailor, this is called the tide. For the guilty man, it is called remorse. God stirs the soul as he causes the ocean to swell.
  • Diamonds are found only in the darkness of the earth. Truths are found only in the depths of the mind. It seemed to him that having descended into those depths, having long groped in the pitch-black of that darkness, he had at last found one of those diamonds, one of those truths, and he now held it in his hand. And he was dazzled by the sight of it.
  • Every event is a bend in the road. And all of a sudden you are old.
  • If you want to understand what revolution is, call it Progress. And if you want to understand what progress is, call it Tomorrow. Tomorrow comes into effect irresistibly, and does so even today. It always achieves its end by strange means.
  • The best of us are not exempt from a selfish way of thinking.
  • Before you grasp a thorny stick, you put on gloves.
  • This book is a drama whose main character is the infinite. Man is the secondary character.
  • Facts, however, are not easy to confound, and they remain obstinate.
  • Man lives by affirmation much more than by bread.
  • To be lost in thought is not to be idle. There is visible work and invisible work.

From Great Expectations:
  • Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be held in a bootjack.
  • Joe's station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when there was company than when there was none. But he always aided and comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a pint.
  • Neither were my notions of the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at all accurate; for, I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my declaration that I was to "walk in the same all the days of my life," laid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down by the wheelwright's or up by the mill
  • In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.
  • "There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip," said Joe, after some rumination, "namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to the same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. That ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don't make it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You're oncommon small. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar."
  • If you can't get to be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked. So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and live well and die happy."
  • That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
  • Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.
This month's teas:
  • English Breakfast
  • White Tea
  • Earl Grey (Black/Green Organic)
  • Peppermint
  • Candy Cane Lane
  • Sweet Harvest Pumpkin

New teas:
I tried Peppermint tea and loved it. I tried Oolong tea, but, I'm not sure if I like it or not. It may take another cup or two before I make up my mind.



© 2016 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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