Quotes about blessing
page 11

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas, chapter 58, hadith number 4
Sunni Hadith

“I woke up from a nap the other night. Everyone is cranky when they wake up. I thought to myself: 'I have no right to be cranky. I'm so lucky.' On my way to go to a restaurant, I get out of the car and I see this person on crutches. His sign says that he has AIDS and that his immune system is low. You know, he's broke, and his family won't talk to him because they can't eat because of the hospital bills. He didn't do this. The system did it - so that when someone has a chronic disease, it sucks him dry. He could have been in that same restaurant two years ago, eating and tipping big. I felt blessed that I could drop a fifty on him.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

Detour, (1993)

Disease, Family, Cars, Way

“Haritha ibn Wahb said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say, 'Shall I tell you about the people of the Fire? All those who are coarse, domineering, and arrogant.'"”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 614
Sunni Hadith

People, Peace

“Three conclusions can be safely drawn from a study of these 21 inscriptions. Firstly, the destruction of Hindu temples continued throughout the Muslim rule, from the date of its first establishment at Delhi in AD 1192 to its downfall with the death of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah in 1748. Secondly, the destruction took place all over India and was undertaken by rulers belonging to all Muslim dynasties, imperial as well as provincial. Thirdly, the destruction had no economic or political motive as has been proposed by Marxist scholars and Muslim apologists; it was inspired by religious zeal and regarded as a pious performance by Muslim kings and commanders, all of whom took considerable pride in it and sought blessing from Allãh and the Prophet. The iconoclasts, it may be added, have been idolised all along as paragons of faith, virtue, justice and generosity. These conclusions become clearer still when we come to evidence from Islamic literary sources.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Death, Faith, Justice, Motivation

“Bless our Mountain Greenery home!
In a mountain greenery
Where God paints the scenery
Just two crazy people together”

Lorenz Hart (1895–1943) lyricist

Mountain Greenery http://www.lorenzhart.org/greenarysng.htm (1935)

God, People, Home, Mountain

“We all have tremendous potential, and we all are blessed with gifts. Yet, the one thing that holds all of us back is some degree of self-doubt. It is not so much the lack of technical information that holds us back, but more the lack of self-confidence. Some are more affected than others.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Confidence, Self-confidence

“Abu Hurayra reported the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Race to good actions as fast as you can. What are you waiting for except delayed poverty, oppressive wealth, debilitating illness, dottering senility, a swift death or the Dajjal? Or are you waiting for an unseen evil, or the Last Hour? The Last Hour will be most bitter and terrible."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 578
Sunni Hadith

Death, Peace, Evil, Waiting

“Ibn 'Umar said, "When we used to give allegiance to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to hear and obey, he would say to us, 'In so far as you are able.'"”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 664
Sunni Hadith

Peace

“Every day, the people I meet inspire me, every day, they make me proud, every day they remind me how blessed we are to live in the greatest nation on earth.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Democratic National Convention speech (2012)

People

“Bless advertising art for its pictorial vitality and verbal creativity.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, Counterblast (1969), p. 18

Art

“Perhaps heaven may not be so far away as we fancy; and if our eyes were not holden, we should see angels ascending and descending, and blessed spirits thronging all about us.”

Arthur Kenney (1776–1855) Irish dean

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 304.

Angels

“The reality is that our God is good. It's in his nature to be good; it's who he is--a giving God, a blessing God, an encouraging God, a nurturing God, an empowering God, a loving God. This is the God who willingly waits for your call.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

Love, God, Nature, Reality

“Man of old who could not fight disease and succumbed in multitudes to yellow fever or any other plague could not lay claim to dignity. Only the man who builds hospitals, discovers therapeutic techniques, and saves lives is blessed with dignity.”

Joseph B. Soloveitchik book The Lonely Man of Faith

Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith, p. 16 (1965)

Disease, Fight

“When we make a habit of prayer, we stay constantly tuned to God's presence and open to receive his blessings.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

God

“The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest, and not inferior to either in her mission.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

Address at Johns Hopkins Hospital (1897); later published in Aequanimitas, and Other Addresses (1905).

Training

“God bless mommy and daddy, and please can we have some candy.”

James Clavell book The Children's Story

"Teacher" leading the class in prayer.
The Children's Story (1982)

God

“Lor bless ye, yes! These critters ain't like white folks, you know; they gets over things, only manage right. Now, they say," said Haley, assuming a candid and confidential air, "that this kind o' trade is hardening to the feelings; but I never found it so. Fact is, I never could do things up the way some fellers manage the business. I've seen 'em as would pull a woman's child out of her arms, and set him up to sell, and she screechin' like mad all the time; — very bad policy — damages the article — makes 'em quite unfit for service sometimes. I knew a real handsome gal once, in Orleans, as was entirely ruined by this sort o' handling. The fellow that was trading for her didn't want her baby; and she was one of your real high sort, when her blood was up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms, and talked, and went on real awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think of 't; and when they carried off the child, and locked her up, she jest went ravin' mad, and died in a week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want of management, — there's where 't is. It's always best to do the humane thing, sir; that's been my experience.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded his arm, with an air of virtuous decision, apparently considering himself a second Wilberforce.
Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Ch. 1 In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity

Way, Feeling, Business, Thinking

“I have no doubt that in heaven the angels will regard the blessed as a necessary evil.”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

Diary entry for August 9, 1985, p. 290.
Writing Home (1994)

Angels, Evil

“As always, the blessed relief of starting, a feeling that was like falling into a hole filled with bright light.
As always, the glum knowledge that he would not write as well as he wanted to write.
As always the terror of not being able to finish, of accelerating into a brick wall.
As always, the marvelous joyful nervy feeling of journey begun.”

Stephen King book Misery

Misery (1987)

Feeling, Knowledge, Light

“Writing songs has a lot to do with your sexuality. I danced for awhile and just being around that made me realize what people use. And if you grow up blessed with a certain beauty or a certain intelligence that enhances your beauty, you can get into a better position in life.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On songwriting and beauty, The Guardian https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22821312/the_guardian/ (December 11, 1991) 1991–1995

Life, People, Beauty, Intelligence

“The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Fifth Revelation, Chapter 13

Death, Passion, Christ

“Compassionate Saviour! We welcome Thee to our world, We welcome Thee to our hearts. We bless Thee for the Divine goodness Thou hast brought from heaven; for the souls Thou hast warmed with love to man, and lifted up in love to God; for the efforts of divine philanthropy which Thou hast inspired; and for that hope of a pure celestial life, through which Thy disciples triumph over death.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 85

Love, Life, Death, God

“I saw that God rejoiceth that He is our Father, and God rejoiceth that He is our Mother, and God rejoiceth that He is our Very Spouse and our soul is His loved Wife. And Christ rejoiceth that He is our Brother, and Jesus rejoiceth that He is our Saviour. These are five high joys, as I understand, in which He willeth that we enjoy; Him praising, Him thanking, Him loving, Him endlessly blessing.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 52

Love, God, Soul, Understanding

“Go, then, young men, where glory waits you. The field is the world. Go where the abjects wander, and gather them into the fold of the sanctuary. Go to the lazarettos where the moral lepers herd, and tell them of the healing balm. Go to the haunts of crime, and float a gospel message upon the feculent air. Go wherever there are ignorant to be instructed, timid to be cheered, and helpless to be succored, and stricken to be blessed, and erring to be reclaimed. Go wherever faith can see, or hope can breathe, or love can work, or courage can venture. Go and win the spurs of your spiritual knighthood there.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 131.

Love, Men, World, Faith

“Abu Hurayra reported that a man said to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, "Advise me." He said, "Do not get angry." He repeated his request several times and the Prophet said, "Do not get angry."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 639
Sunni Hadith

Peace, Time

“Trust yourselves, my brethren, to the immortal love and perfect work of the Divine Saviour, and by His dear might your days will advance by peaceful stages, whereof each gathers up and carries forward the blessings of all that went before, to a death which shall be a birth.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 590.

Love, Death, Peace, Birth

“Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. II; CLXXVIII
Lacon (1820)

People

“'Abdullah ibn 'Amr ibn al-'As reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "If anyone has four characteristics, he is a pure hypocrite, and if anyone has one of them, he has an aspect of hypocrisy until he gives it up: whenever he is trusted, he betrays his trust; whenever he speaks, he lies; whenever he makes an agreement, he breaks it; and whenever he quarrels, he deviates from the truth speaks falsely."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 690
Sunni Hadith

Truth, Peace, Falseness

“If one permits an infidel to continue in his role as a corrupter of the earth, the infidel's moral suffering will be all the worse. If one kills the infidel, and this stops him from perpetrating his misdeeds, his death will be a blessing to him.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Speech on the day of Mohammed's birth (1984)
Foreign policy

Death, Suffering

“Every living thing was shunning him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”

J. M. Barrie book The Little White Bird

Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 14

Faith, Bird, Parting, Perfection

“Anas reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Allah is pleased with His slave who eats a morsel and praises Allah for it or takes a drink and praises Allah for it."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 1, hadith number 140
Sunni Hadith

Peace, Drink

“After proving God’s faithfulness for many years, I can testify that times of want have ever been times of spiritual blessing, or have led to them.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 406).

God, Faith, Time

“He [Turgot] now, in 1749, at the age of twenty two, wrote… a letter which has been an object of wonder among political thinkers ever since. Its subject was paper money. Discussing the ideas of John Law, and especially the essay of Terrasson which had supported them, he dissected them mercilessly, but in a way useful not only in those times but in these. …Terrasson's arguments in behalf of unlimited issues of paper had been put forth in 1720. …and he declared that the material used for bearing the sign of value is indifferent …and that if a sovereign issues enough of paper promises, he will be able to loan or even to give money in unlimited amounts to his needy subjects. …without danger of depreciation. …Terrasson also made the distinction between the note of a business man and notes issued by a government, that the former comes back and must be paid, but that the latter need not come back and can be kept afloat forever by simple governmental command, thus becoming that blessed thing—worshiped widely, not many years since, in our own country—"fiat money."”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 168-169

Money, Age, Law, Way

“Dream tonight of peacock tails, / Diamond fields and spouter whales. / Ills are many, blessings few, / But dreams tonight will shelter you.”

Thomas Pynchon book V.

Source: V. (1963), Chapter Nine, Part II

Dreams

“God bless the devout Christians of this country. They are Israel's best friends on the earth.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

"A Long Memorial Day" American Spectator (1 June 2010) http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/01/a-long-memorial-day

God, Country

“Work, and thou wilt bless the day
Ere the toil be done;
They that work not, can not pray,
Can not feel the sun.
God is living, working still,
All things work and move;
Work, or lose the power to will,
Lose the power to love.”

John Sullivan Dwight (1813–1893) American minister

Working.

Love, God, Feeling, Sun

“It was the period of my mental progress which I have now reached that I formed the friendship which has been the honour and chief blessing of my existence, as well as the source of a great part of all that I have attempted to do, or hope to effect hereafter, for human improvement. My first introduction to the lady who, after a friendship of twenty years, consented to become my wife, was in 1830, when I was in my twenty-fifth and she in her twenty-third year.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/184/mode/1up p. 184

Friendship, Hope, Parting

“I dreamt last night Christ came to earth again
To bless His own. My soul from place to place
On her dream-quest sped, seeking for His face
Through temple and town and lovely land, in vain.
Then came I to a place where death and pain
Had made of God's sweet world a waste forlorn,
With shattered trees and meadows gashed and torn,
Where the grim trenches scarred the shell-sheared plain.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, Advent 1916

Love, Death, God, Pain

“I do not care a button about having my name in any blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known and a 'leader'. Then, again, I don't believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom' and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere… or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to the 'religions' and is the reason of their failure. If I tolerate a little writing about myself, it is only to have a sufficient counter-weight in that amorphous chaos, the public mind, to balance the hostility that is always aroused by the presence of a new dynamic Truth in this world of ignorance. But the utility ends there and too much advertisement would defeat that object. I am perfectly 'rational', I assure you, in my methods and I do not proceed merely on any personal dislike of fame. If and so far as publicity serves the Truth, I am quite ready to tolerate it; but I do not find publicity for its own sake desirable.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

October 2, 1934
India's Rebirth

Hostility, People, Truth, Books

“Looking back now, it's easy to see that I had no models for the socially accepted conventional female role, which was certainly a blessing.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 44

“But Love’s bright fount is never pure;
And all his pilgrims must endure
All passion’s mighty suffering
Ere they may reach the blessed spring.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Title Poem
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Love, Spring, Suffering, Passion

“Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "If the believers knew the punishment which Allah has, none of them would have any hope of attaining His Garden [heaven]. If the unbelievers knew the mercy which Allah has, none of them would despair of reaching His Garden.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 443
Sunni Hadith

Peace, Hope, Despair

“No more stress, now I'm straight
Now I get it, now I take time to think
Before I make mistakes just for my family's sake
part of me left yesterday
The heart of me is strong today
No regrets I'm blessed to say that old me dead and gone away”

T.I. (1980) American rapper, record producer, actor, and businessman from Georgia

"Dead and Gone".

Family, Thinking, Strong, Time

“I'll sing a song of love so sweet, so blessed
with harmonious sounds, so true to the name
of love (with two thousand examples), it will enflame
even those with dead hearts in their chest.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente,
Por uns termos em si tão concertados,
Que dois mil acidentes namorados
Faça sentir ao peito que não sente.
Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 128
Lyric poetry, Sonnets, Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente

Love, Singing, Heart, Dead

“We say our terror against America is blessed terror in order to put an end to suppression, in order for the United States to stop its support to Israel.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Video statement broadcast on the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera TV station. (26 December 2001) http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/world/0302/timeline.bin.laden.audio/content.5.html. 2000s, 2002

Support

“I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you!”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to Charles Armitage Brown (November 30, 1820)
Letters (1817–1820)

God

“For towards the close of my father’s reign,… availing himself of the influence which by some means or other he had acquired, he [Abul Fazzel] so wrought upon the mind of his master [that is, Akbar], as to instil into him the belief that the seal and asylum of prophecy, to whom the devotion of a thousand lives such as mine would be a sacrifice too inadequate to speak of, was no more to be thought of than as an Arab of singular eloquence, and that the sacred inspirations recorded in the Koran were nothing else but fabrications invented by the ever-blessed Mahommed…. Actuated by these reasons it was that I employed the man who killed Abul Fazzel and brought his head to me, and for this it was that I incurred my father’s deep displeasure.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Memoirs of the Emperor Jahangueir, written by himself; and translated from a Persian manuscript, by Major David Price (Oriental Translation Committee, 1829), Quoted from Spencer, Robert (2018). The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.

“All these threatening storms, which, like impregnate Clouds, hover o'er our heads, will (when they once are grasp'd but by the eye of reason) melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people.”

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628–1687) English statesman and poet

Physician, Act II, sc. i
The Rehearsal (1671)

People

“Should you be a teenager blessed with uncommon good looks, document this state of affairs by the taking of photographs. It is the only way anyone will ever believe you in years to come.”

Fran Lebowitz book Social Studies

"Tips for Teens".
Social Studies (1981)

Way

“He also reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Help your brother, wronging or wronged." A man said, "Messenger of Allah, I can help him if he is wronged but tell me how I can help him if he is wronging?" He said, "You can restrain him - or prevent him - from injustice. That is helping him."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 2, hadith number 237
Sunni Hadith

Peace, Help

“Happy will be the men who, having the power and the love and the benevolent forecast to [create a park], will do it. They will not be forgotten. The trees and their lovers will sing their praises, and generations yet unborn will rise up and call them blessed.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

"The Basin of the Columbia River" in Picturesque California (1888-1890); reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 22
1880s

Love, Men, Happiness, Lovers

“For years they have known they are in the presence of something stronger than they—a mystery that renders them powerless. Already constellated is a "god consciousness"—awesome and holy—that has nothing to do with the church or with groups. They know they have to engage in a different arena of reality. That arena is the psyche. By virtue of their temperament, training, consciousness, these women are blessed (or cursed) with an introspective nature, an exploring mind, an invincible curiosity about themselves which connects them to their own inner microscope. For better or for worse, they are convinced that the solution to their lives is in submission not to an externally imposed authority which they cannot understand, but to a truth that abides in themselves.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

Source: The Pregnant Virgin (1985), p. 99

Women, God, Truth, Understanding

“O Kunti, grant me some more offspring for the expansion of my race and for the benefit of the world. O blessed one, provide thou that I myself, my ancestors, and thine also, may always have the funeral cake offered to us. O, do what is beneficial to me, and grant me and the world what, indeed, is the best of benefits. O, do what, indeed, may be difficult for thee, moved by the desire of achieving undying fame. Behold, Indra, even though he hath obtained the sovereignty of the celestials, doth yet, for fame alone, perform sacrifices. O handsome one, Brahmanas, well-acquainted with the Vedas, and having achieved high ascetic merit, do yet, for fame alone, approach their spiritual masters with reverence. So also all royal sages and Brahmanas possessed of ascetic wealth have achieved, for fame only, the most difficult of ascetic feat. Therefore, O blameless one, rescue this Madri as by a raft (by granting her the means of obtaining offspring), and achieve thou imperishable fame by making her a mother of children.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Pandu requesting Kunti to help Madri.
The Mahabharata/Book 1: Adi Parva/Section CXXIV

Children, World, Wealth

“In the nine heavens are eight Paradises;
Where is the ninth one? In the human breast.
Only the blessed dwell in th' Paradises,
But blessedness dwells in the human breast.”

William R. Alger (1822–1905) American clergyman and poet

"The Ninth Paradise", p. 223.
Poetry of the Orient, 1865 edition

“'Abdullah ibn Mughaffal said, "A man said to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, "Messenger of Allah, by Allah, I love you." He said, "Be careful of what you say." He said, "By Allah, I love you," three times. He said, "If you love me, then prepare yourself for poverty. Poverty comes swifter to the one who loves me than a flood to its destination."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 484
Sunni Hadith

Love, Peace, Time

“You have never been blessed out or bawled out or chewed out unless you got it from The Boo in his prime. Did I say he was five times louder than God? I'm sorry if that sounds sacrilegious and it certainly is not true. The Boo was at least ten times louder than God and I was scared of him my entire cadet career.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Eulogy for "The Boo" (May 3, 2006)

God, Time

“Finnish society could not serve as a blueprint for the United States. National differences matter. Ours is a society driven by money, blessed by huge private philanthropy, cursed by endemic corruption and saddled with deep mistrust of government and other public institutions. Finns have none of those attributes. Nor do they tune in to American individualism. Groupthink seems to be fine with most Finns; con-formity is the norm, risk-taking is avoided — a problem now, when entrepreneurs are so needed. I was bothered by a sense of entitlement among many Finns, especially younger people.”

Robert G. Kaiser (1943) American journalist

2000s, "Why can't we be more like Finland?" (2005)

Money, People, Problem, Sense

“Al-Miqdam ibn Ma'dikarib reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "None of you eats better food than that which he eats as a result of the work of his own hand. The Prophet Dawud used to eat from the work of his own hand."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 543
Sunni Hadith

Peace, Food

“Dhoni is a very smart man and intelligent captain and manages his resources perfectly. India is blessed to have someone as level-headed as him at the helm.”

MS Dhoni (1981) Indian cricket player

Shoaib Akhtar https://www.scoopwhoop.com/sports/dhoni-quotes/

Intelligence

“Dear Martyrs, We do not address you as men who have passed away, but rather as men who are still living among your own people, among your own brothers in the Armed Forces and among your own honest families. As Almighty God says, those who are killed for the sake of God are not dead but alive under His blessing. You have sacrificed your lives, in defence of right and of Iraq, thus giving the highest example in life. Be blessed, you men; you have become a source of great pride for Iraq and for your families. Your comrades-in-arms and your compatriots are aspiring to your position, which is the most glorious and great.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

President Saddam Hussein's Speech on National Day (1981)

Life, Men, God, People

“Human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty — it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

Beauty, Feeling, Waiting

“Just as, in the case of the sunlight, on one who has never from the day of his birth seen it, all efforts at translating it into words are quite thrown away; you cannot make the splendour of the ray shine through his ears; in like manner, to see the beauty of the true and intellectual light, each man has need of eyes of his own; and he who by a gift of Divine inspiration can see it retains his ecstasy unexpressed in the depths of his consciousness; while he who sees it not cannot be made to know even the greatness of his loss. How should he? This good escapes his perception, and it cannot be represented to him; it is unspeakable, and cannot be delineated. We have not learned the peculiar language expressive of this beauty. … What words could be invented to show the greatness of this loss to him who suffers it? Well does the great David seem to me to express the impossibility of doing this. He has been lifted by the power of the Spirit out of himself, and sees in a blessed state of ecstacy the boundless and incomprehensible Beauty; he sees it as fully as a mortal can see who has quitted his fleshly envelopments and entered, by the mere power of thought, upon the contemplation of the spiritual and intellectual world, and in his longing to speak a word worthy of the spectacle he bursts forth with that cry, which all re-echo, "Every man a liar!"”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

I take that to mean that any man who entrusts to language the task of presenting the ineffable Light is really and truly a liar; not because of any hatred on his part of the truth, but because of the feebleness of his instrument for expressing the thing thought of.
On Virginity, Chapter 10

Truth, World, Beauty, Birth

“Diligence, hard work, foresight, entrepreneurship and God's blessing.”

Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines

On how Ferdinand Marcos became wealthy, as quoted in The Philippine Daily Inquirer (March 1998).

God

“What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God, in time if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become it may in time be called a blessing. But at this time it's called a curse.”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

God, Time

“The good old Dominion, the blessed mother of us all.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

"Thoughts on Lotteries" (1826)
1820s

“In the center sits Mary, with her crown on her head and her son in her lap, enthroned, receiving the homage of heaven and earth; of all time, ancient and modern; of all thought, Christian and Pagan; of all men, and all women; including if you please, your homage and mine, which she receives without question, as her due; which she cannot be said to claim, because she is above making claims; she is empress. Her left hand bore a sceptre; her right supported the child, who looks directly forward, repeating the mother's attitude, and raises his right hand to bless, while his left rests on the orb of empire. She and her child are one.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Women, Men, Question, Support

“I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self- government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820)
1820s

Happiness, World, Faith, Hope

“The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men.”

George Eliot book Scenes of Clerical Life

"Janet's Repentance" Ch. 10 in Scenes of Clerical Life (1858); this has appeared in paraphrased form as: "The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men."
Scenes of Clerical Life (1858)

Men, World, Waiting, Help

“The inspiring theory for Bretton Woods was suggested by a well known economist, beyond any suspect, John M. Keynes. Lord Keynes - as in the meanwhile he has been appointed by the English Crown - appeared worried about possible troubles in the international system of payments, like those occurred after World War One, which contributed to the new conflict. He has published an article on this subject in 1946. Consequently he gave the blessing of his authority to the agreements. Lord Keynes, as chief of the British delegation, was appointed chairman of the Commission II, charged for the institution of an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development - IBRD (World Bank). The Bretton Woods agreements represented a sort of solemn will for Lord Keynes, since he died out two years later the signature”

Nico Perrone (1935) Italian historian and writer

Source: The international economy from a political to an authoritative drive, p. 129

War, World, Appearance

“We are blessed with a faith, which calls into action the whole intellectual man; which prescribes a reasonable service; which challenges the investigation of its evidences; and which, in the doctrine of immortality, invests the mind of man with a portion of the dignity of Divine intelligence.”

Edward Everett (1794–1865) American politician, orator, statesman

Edward Everett, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 140.

Faith, Intelligence

“A strong church is made up of well-ordered families, where intelligent, Christian parents bring up their children in the fear of the Lord, where the home of the week has its counterpart in the home of the Sabbath, where the hopes and joys of the living, and the blessed memories of the dead bind to the Lord and His church, where young men and maidens are glad when it is said to them, " Let us go unto the house of the Lord," where the tranquillity, and purity, and holy peace, the light and the love, form to the opening minds of the children a type and prophecy of the eternal Sabbath and the heaven above.”

John Hall (1829–1898) Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died 1898

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 144.

Love, Men, Children, Fear

“Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;
Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store.”

Thomas Moss (minister) (1740–1808) British writer

The Beggar, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“It seemed like there was no control over it. I think certain things just popped. God was blessing us in telling us that certain things were going the way they were supposed to go.”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

Perry, Andrew (2004). "The White Stripes uncut" http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1349947,00.html ObserverGuarduan.co.uk (accessed June 6, 2006) On why 2004 was, up to that point, the best year of his life 2004

God, Way, Thinking

“It's a real blessing for me to tell you, sir, that cavalry has arrived — Fox is here!”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2009-02-03
2000s, 2009

“Of a woman are we conceived,
Of a woman are we born,
To a woman are we betrothed and married,
It is a woman who keeps the race going,
Another companion is sought when the life-partner dies,
Through a woman are established social ties.
Why should we consider woman cursed and condemned,
When from woman are born leaders and rulers.
From woman alone is born a woman,
Without woman there can be no human birth.
Without woman, O Nanak, only the True One exists.
Be it man or be it woman,
Only those who sing His glory
Are blessed and radiant with His Beauty,
In His Presence and with His grace
They appear with a radiant face.”

Nanak (1469–1539) Founder of Sikhism

Raag Aasaa Mehal 1, p. 473; in Aad Guru Granth Sahib (1983 edition by Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee); also in Guru Nanak and His Times (1971) by Anil Chandra Banerjee, p. 78

Life, Beauty, Birth, Appearance

“I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

On the White House, in a letter to Abigail Adams (2 November 1800)
Franklin D. Roosevelt had this inscribed on the mantlepiece of the State Dining Room
1800s

Men, Housing

“…whereas the vices of Messalina were in themselves venial, being mostly a passion for sensual gratification which subordinated all things to its encompassing, Agrippina lived solely for power, frightening enough in a man but terrifying in a woman…. she would sleep with anyone, though not for physical pleasure, only for political advantage. She was cursed or blessed with a certain sexual coldness, knowing as much as a temple prostitute about the arousing of male passion and the procurement of its ecstatic release but keeping herself aloof, despite an occasional simulation of desire and the odd false orgiastic shudder and scream of fulfilment, from a process she found distressingly bestial when it was not frankly comic.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Kingdom of the Wicked (1985)

Pleasure, Sleep, Passion, Falseness

“Truth is Thy primal word; at thy behest
The generations pass - O aid our quest
For Thee, and set my host of songs on high,
And let my psalmody come very nigh.
My praises as a coronal account,
And let my prayers as Thine incense mount.
Deem precious unto Thee the poor man's song,
As those that to thine altar did belong.
Rise, O my blessing, to the lord of birth,
The breeding, quickening, righteous force of earth.
Do Thou receive it with acceptant nod,
My choicest incense offered to my God.
And let my meditation grateful be,
For all my being is athirst for Thee.

from Millgram, A. E., Anthology of Medieval Hebrew Literature, Abelard, 1961.”

Yehuda he-Hasid (1140–1217) German philosopher

Shir Hakovod, trans. from the Hebrew by Israel Zangwill

God, Truth, Literature, Birth

“Let Ariel learn
a blessing for Caliban
and Caliban drink dew from the lotus
open upon the waters.”

Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet

Conversation in Moscow, The Freeing of the Dust

Drink, Learning, Water

“Okay bear with me this'll be a little tough. You should know this isn't the first time I thought about leaving. I thought about it some twenty years ago when a check that would soon become a part of Cincinnati folklore, made me see life from the bottom. To be honest, a thought about ending it all crossed my mind, but a more reasonable alternative seemed to be 'hey how about just leaving town? Running away? Starting life over, some place else?' You see, in political terms as well as human, here in Cincinnati, I was dead. But then in the, probably, the luckiest decision I ever made, I decided 'No! I'm staying put!' I would withstand all the jokes, all the ridicule. I'd pretend it didn't hurt, and I would give every ounce of my being to Cincinnati. 'Why in time,' I was thinking, 'you'd have to like me. Or if not like me, at least respect me.' And I'd run for council even unendorsed. And I'd prove to you I could be the best public servant you ever had, or I'd die trying. Be it as a mayor, an anchor, or a commentator, whatever it took, I was determined to have you know that I was more than a check and a hooker on a one night stand. But something happened along the way. Maybe it's God's way of teaching us. I don't know, but you see? In trying to prove something to you, I learned something about me. I learned that I had fallen in love with you. With Cincinnati. With you who taught me more about life, and caring, and forgiving, and also most importantly, giving. Giving something back. Which is part of the reason… I have been… Excuse me. So sad this week. why… Why it's so hard to say goodbye. God bless you, and goodbye.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

his final commentary at NBC's WLWT in Ohio, January 1993 This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One.

Love, Life, God, Sadness

“Blessed God, pity the soul whose extremest horror is the doom of an eternal departure from Thee. Draw my spirit into the holiest and the nearest union with Thyself that is possible while it dwells in this flesh! And let me here commence that delightful residence and converse with God, which nor death, nor judgment shall ever destroy, nor shall a long eternity ever put a period to it.”

Elizabeth Rowe (1674–1737) poet and writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 433.

Death, God, Soul, Departure

“If we wish to have blessings, we must fulfil our filial duties. Those who fulfil their filial duties will surely have blessings in the living world.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

Melbourne, (07 December 2014)[citation needed].

World

“Abu Hurayra stated, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The most perfect of believers in belief is the best of them in character. The best of you are those who are the best to their women."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 2, hadith number 278
Sunni Hadith

Women, Peace, Perfection

“Imagine a person who has been and is addicted to a passion. There comes a moment (as it does to everyone, perhaps many times – alas, perhaps many times in vain!), a moment he seems to be brought to a halt: a good resolution is awakening. Imagine that one morning he said to himself (let us suppose him to be a gambler), “I solemnly vow that I will nevermore have anything to do with gambling, never – tonight will be the last time” – ah, my friend, he s lost! I would rather bet on the opposite, however strange that may seem. If there was a gambler who said to himself, “Well, now, you may gamble every blessed day all the rest of your life – but tonight you are going to leave it alone,” and he did – ah, my friend, he is saved for sure! The first gambler’s resolution is a trick by the craving, and the second gambler’s is to fool the craving.”

Sören Kierkegaard book For Self-Examination

Soren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, Hong p. 45
1850s, For Self-Examination (1851), What is Required in Order to Look at Oneself with True Blessing in the Mirror of the Word?

Life, Fools, Imagination, Passion

“Whom, then, did the Master mean by the poor in spirit to whom the kingdom belongs?Not those who are rightly called "poor spirited." There ought to be no need of saying that, but there is, for some may still be found who consider crawling the Christian's proper gait.There are men who fear to call their souls their own, and if they did, they would deceive— themselves. At times such men baptize their cowardice in holy water, name it humility, and tremble…. They are not blessed. Their life is a creeping paralysis. Afraid to stand for their convictions, they end by having no convictions to stand to.”

William Burnet Wright (1836–1924) American clergyman

Source: Master and Men (1894), pp. 39-40

Life, Men, Fear, Soul

“How blessings brighten as they take their flight!”

Edward Young Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 602.

“I heard the hiss and felt the blessed numbness spreading. If there is a God, I thought, it’s a painkiller.”

Dan Simmons book Endymion

Source: Endymion (1996), Chapter 34 (p. 350)

God

“Who saves his country, saves himself, saves all things, and all things saved do bless him! Who lets his country die, lets all things die, dies himself ignobly, and all things dying curse him!”

Benjamin Harvey Hill (1823–1882) American politician

Reported in Benjamin H. Hill, Jr., Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia; His Life, Speeches and Writings (1893), epigraph, p. 594. From "Notes on the Situation", a series of articles appearing in the Chronicle and Sentinel, Atlanta, Georgia.

Country

“At least Alzheimer's patients do not know what is happening to their brains and bodies. Some say this makes Alzheimer's less terrible than ALS, where the patient understands everything. But if lack of comprehension is of some small blessing to the Alzheimer's victim, it does nothing to help the family. Care of the stricken spouse or parent can consume a family's time, energy and resources. Instead of enjoying retirement years, a husband or wife, whose own strength may be declining with age, can find every day consumed by care giving. Then there is the wrenching decision of whether to place the loved one in a nursing home, a decision that can result in enormous cost, not to mention guilt.”

John Danforth (1936) American politician

Page 95
Faith and Politics (2006)

Love, Age, Family, Home

“If you have not tasted poverty, you will not be able to manage blessing when it comes. If you have not tasted humiliation, you will not be able to manage honour when it comes.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

In an interview with Tell Magazine, Nigeria, on the reason for his passion for the needy - "The People Come First - TB Joshua" http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10335740/The-People-Come-First---TB-Joshua (December 24 2007)