Quotes about grace
page 10

John Calvin photo
Thomas Watson photo

“Repentance is a grace of God's Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed.”

Thomas Watson (1616–1686) English nonconformist preacher and author

The Doctrine of Repentance (1668)

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo

“I have meddled in so many matters under your Highness that I am not able to answer them all…but hard it is for me or any other meddling as I have done to live under your grace and your laws but we must daily offend.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Source: Letter to Henry VIII whilst imprisoned in the Tower of London. (Merriman, ii. p. 266.)

William Styron photo

“In many of Albrecht Dürer’s engravings there are harrowing depictions of his own melancholia; the manic wheeling stars of Van Gogh are the precursors of the artist’s plunge into dementia and the extinction of self. It is a suffering that often tinges the music of Beethoven, of Schumann and Mahler, and permeates the darker cantatas of Bach. The vast metaphor which most faithfully represents this fathomless ordeal, however, is that of Dante, and his all-too-familiar lines still arrest the imagination with their augury of the unknowable, the black struggle to come:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
Ché la diritta via era smarrita.
In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark wood,
For I had lost the right path.
One can be sure that these words have been more than once employed to conjure the ravages of melancholia, but their somber foreboding has often overshadowed the last lines of the best-known part of that poem, with their evocation of hope. To most of those who have experienced it, the horror of depression is so overwhelming as to be quite beyond expression, hence the frustrated sense of inadequacy found in the work of even the greatest artists. But in science and art the search will doubtless go on for a clear representation of its meaning, which sometimes, for those who have known it, is a simulacrum of all the evil of our world: of our everyday discord and chaos, our irrationality, warfare and crime, torture and violence, our impulse toward death and our flight from it held in the intolerable equipoise of history. If our lives had no other configuration but this, we should want, and perhaps deserve, to perish; if depression had no termination, then suicide would, indeed, be the only remedy. But one need not sound the false or inspirational note to stress the truth that depression is not the soul’s annihilation; men and women who have recovered from the disease — and they are countless — bear witness to what is probably its only saving grace: it is conquerable.”

Source: Darkness Visible (1990), X

Frederick Buechner photo

“Grace is something you can never get but only be given.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith (1979)

“For we know the clod, by the grace of God
Will quicken with voice and breath;
And we know that Love, with gentle hand
Will beckon from death to death.”

These lines just before the final four do not appear in most published versions, but were included in the version published in The Book of Poetry (1927) edited by Edwin Markham. It is not known whether they existed in the second newspaper publication, of which no copies are known to survive, or derived from manuscript variants.
Evolution (1895; 1909)

Mike Scott photo
Pat Conroy photo
Eliza Farnham photo

“Each of the Arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a Muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them.”

Eliza Farnham (1815–1864) American novelist, feminist, abolitionist, and activist for prison reform

Woman and Her Era (1864), pt. 2, ch. 1

Marguerite Bourgeoys photo
Dante Gabriel Rossetti photo
Sarada Devi photo

“I am one of the last of a small tribe of troubadours, who still believe that life is a beautiful and exciting journey with a purpose and grace which are well worth singing about.”

Yip Harburg (1896–1981) American song lyricist

As quoted in "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", by Scott Jacobs, in The Week Behind (23 September 2009).

Eleanor Farjeon photo
Gerald of Wales photo

“I have thought it relevant to include here an exemplum found in the answer which Richard, King of the English, made to Fulk, a virtuous and holy man…This saintly man had been talking to the King for some time. "You have three daughters," he said, "and, as long as they remain with you, you will never receive the grace of God. Their names are Superbia, Luxuria nd Cupiditas." For a moment the King did not know what to answer. Then he replied: "I have already given these daughters of mine away in marriage. Pride I gave to the Templars, Lechery I gave to the Black Monks and Covetousness to the White Monks."”
Exemplum autem de responso Ricardi regis Anglorum, facto magistro Fulconi viro bono et sancto…et hic interserere praeter rem non putavi. Cum inter cetera vir ille sanctus regi dixisset; "Tres filias habetis, quae quamdiu penes vos fuerint, nunquam Dei gratiam habere poteritis, superbiam scilicet, luxuriam, et cupiditatem." Cui rex, post modicam quasi pausationem, "Jam," inquit, "maritavi filias istas, et nuptui dedi; Templariis superbiam, nigris monachis luxuriam, albis vero cupiditatem."

Gerald of Wales (1146) Medieval clergyman and historian

Exemplum autem de responso Ricardi regis Anglorum, facto magistro Fulconi viro bono et sancto…et hic interserere praeter rem non putavi. Cum inter cetera vir ille sanctus regi dixisset; "Tres filias habetis, quae quamdiu penes vos fuerint, nunquam Dei gratiam habere poteritis, superbiam scilicet, luxuriam, et cupiditatem."
Cui rex, post modicam quasi pausationem, "Jam," inquit, "maritavi filias istas, et nuptui dedi; Templariis superbiam, nigris monachis luxuriam, albis vero cupiditatem."
Book 1, chapter 3, pp. 104-5.
Itinerarium Cambriae (The Journey Through Wales) (1191)

Ezra Pound photo
Báb photo
William Adams photo

“Eternal life does not depend upon our perfection; but because it does depend upon the grace of Christ and the love of the Spirit, that love shall prompt us to emulate perfection.”

William Adams (1706–1789) Fellow and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 210.

Julian of Norwich photo

“For all heavenly, and all earthly things that belong to Heaven, are comprehended in these two dooms. And the more understanding, by the gracious leading of the Holy Ghost, that we have of these two dooms, the more we shall see and know our failings. And ever the more that we see them, the more, of nature, by grace, we shall long to be fulfilled of endless joy and bliss. For we are made thereto, and our Nature-Substance is now blissful in God, and hath been since it was made, and shall be without end.”

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

Summations, Chapter 45
Context: God deemeth us upon our Nature-Substance, which is ever kept one in Him, whole and safe without end: and this doom is of His rightfulness. And man judgeth upon our changeable Sense-soul, which seemeth now one, now other, — according as it taketh of the parts, — and showeth outward. And this wisdom is mingled. For sometimes it is good and easy, and sometimes it is hard and grievous. And in as much as it is good and easy it belongeth to the rightfulness; and in as much as it is hard and grievous our good Lord Jesus reformeth it by mercy and grace through the virtue of His blessed Passion, and so bringeth it to the rightfulness.
And though these two be thus accorded and oned, yet both shall be known in Heaven without end. The first doom, which is of God’s rightfulness, is of His high endless life; and this is that fair sweet doom that was shewed in all the fair Revelation, in which I saw Him assign to us no manner of blame. But though this was sweet and delectable, yet in the beholding only of this, I could not be fully eased: and that was because of the doom of Holy Church, which I had afore understood and which was continually in my sight. And therefore by this doom methought I understood that sinners are worthy sometime of blame and wrath; but these two could I not see in God; and therefore my desire was more than I can or may tell. For the higher doom was shewed by God Himself in that same time, and therefore me behoved needs to take it; and the lower doom was learned me afore in Holy Church, and therefore I might in no way leave the lower doom. Then was this my desire: that I might see in God in what manner that which the doom of Holy Church teacheth is true in His sight, and how it belongeth to me verily to know it; whereby the two dooms might both be saved, so as it were worshipful to God and right way to me.
And to all this I had none other answer but a marvellous example of a lord and of a servant, as I shall tell after: — and that full mistily shewed. And yet I stand desiring, and will unto my end, that I might by grace know these two dooms as it belongeth to me. For all heavenly, and all earthly things that belong to Heaven, are comprehended in these two dooms. And the more understanding, by the gracious leading of the Holy Ghost, that we have of these two dooms, the more we shall see and know our failings. And ever the more that we see them, the more, of nature, by grace, we shall long to be fulfilled of endless joy and bliss. For we are made thereto, and our Nature-Substance is now blissful in God, and hath been since it was made, and shall be without end.

“In this awfully stupendous manner, at which Reason stands aghast, and Faith herself is half confounded, was the grace of God to man at length manifested.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 74.

John Updike photo

“Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 1

John Newton photo
Marianne Williamson photo
George Macaulay Trevelyan photo
Edwin Arlington Robinson photo
Báb photo
Elton John photo

“O forgive! Thy sons live from Thee reft;
Praised for grace, Turn thy face to those left,
"Forgiven!"”

Yom Tov of Joigny English rabbi

Omnam Kayn, trans. from the Hebrew by Israel Zangwill

Menno Simons photo
Muhammad bin Tughluq photo

“The Sultan is not slack in jihad. He never lets go of his spear or bridle in pursuing jihad by land and sea routes. This is his main occupation which engages his eyes and ears. He has spent vast sums for the establishment of the faith and the spread of Islam in these lands, as a result of which the light of Islam has reached the inhabitants and the flash of the true faith brightened among them. Fire temples have been destroyed and the images and idols of Budd have been broken, and the lands have been freed from those who were not included in the darul Islam, that is, those who had refused to become zimmis. Islam has been spread by him in the far east and has reached the point of sunrise. In the words of Abu Nasr al-Aini, he has carried the flags of the followers of Islam where they had never reached before and where no chapter or verse (of the Quran) had ever been recited. Thereafter he got mosques and places of worship erected, and music replaced by call to prayers (azan), and the incantations of fire-worshippers stopped by recitations of the Quran. He directed the people of Islam towards the citadels of the infidels and, by the grace of Allah, made them (the believers) inheritors of wealth and land and that country which they (the believers) had never trodden upon.”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Tughlaq Kalina Bharata, Persian texts translated into Hindi by S.A.A. Rizvi, 2 Volumes, Aligarh, 1956-57. p. 325 ff. Vol I. (Shihabuddin Al Umari.) Also quoted (using a different translation) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. 8th to 15th Centuries, p. 274.

John Buchan photo
Francis Escudero photo
Robert Southwell photo

“Grant me grace, O God! that I
My life may mend, sith I must die.”

Robert Southwell (1561–1595) English Jesuit

Source: Upon the Image of Death, Line 53; p. 138.

Henry Francis Lyte photo

“I need Thy presence every passing hour;
What, but Thy grace, can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me!”

Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) Anglican priest, hymn-writer and poet

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 276.

Ravachol photo

“What is needed then? Destroy poverty, that source of crime, by assuring to each the satisfaction of all needs! And how difficult is this to achieve? It would suffice to establish society on new bases where everything would be in common and each, producing according to their aptitudes and strengths, could consume according to their needs. Then we would no longer see people like the hermit of Notre-Dame-de-Grace and others crave a metal of which they become the slaves and the victims! We would no longer see women flaunt their charms, like a vulgar merchandise, in exchange for this same metal that so often prevents us from recognising if the affection is truly sincere.”

Ravachol (1859–1892) French anarchist

Que faut-il alors ? Détruire la misère, ce germe de crime, en assurant à chacun la satisfaction de tous les besoins ! Et combien cela est difficile à réaliser ! Il suffirait d'établir la société sur de nouvelles bases où tout serait en commun, et où chacun, produisant selon ses aptitudes et ses forces, pourrait consommer selon ses besoins. Alors on ne verra plus des gens comme l'ermite de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce et autres mendier un métal dont ils deviennent les esclaves et les victimes ! On ne verra plus les femmes céder leurs appâts, comme une vulgaire marchandise, en échange de ce même métal qui nous empêche bien souvent de reconnaître si l'affection est vraiment sincère.
Trial statement

Katherine Paterson photo
Jean-François Lyotard photo
Philip Massinger photo
Charlton Heston photo
Amit Chaudhuri photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Henry Suso photo
Julian of Norwich photo
François Fénelon photo
Aldo Leopold photo
John Newton photo
Muhammad Iqbál photo
Simone Weil photo

“To desire friendship is a great fault. Friendship should be a gratuitous joy like those afforded by art or life. We must refuse it so that we may be worthy to receive it; it is of the order of grace.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Love (1947), p. 274

Francis Escudero photo
Henry Francis Lyte photo

“Haste thee on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith and winged by prayer,
Heaven's eternal day's before thee;
God's own hand shall guide thee there.”

Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) Anglican priest, hymn-writer and poet

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 5.

Richard Lovelace photo

“Oh, could you view the melody
Of every grace
And music of her face,
You'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye
Than now you hear.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

Orpheus to Beasts. Compare: "There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument; for there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres", Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part ii, Section ix; "The mind, the music breathing from her face", Lord Byron, Bride of Abydos (1813), canto i, stanza 6.
Lucasta (1649)

Julian of Norwich photo
Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert photo

“We spoil the dispositions nature has given to women; we neglect their education, fill their minds with nothing solid, and destine them solely to please, and to please only by their graces or their vices.”

Wiki translation based on that of Amelia Gere Mason, The Women of the French Salons; New York: The Century Co., 1891. p. 142.
New Reflections on Women, 1727

Joanna Newsom photo
Pierre-Auguste Renoir photo

“Berthe Morisot was a painter full of eighteenth-century delicacy and grace; in a word, the last elegant and 'feminine' artists since Fragonard.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 175 : Renoir's remarks to Vollard, referring to the delicate painting-style of Berthe Morisot's, the only French woman-artist of Paris Impressionism.

Nick Drake photo

“Please give me a second grace.
Please give me a second face.
I've fallen far down
The first time around.
Now I just sit on the ground in your way.”

Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter

Fly
Song lyrics, Bryter Later (1970)

Amir Taheri photo
Aurangzeb photo

“The village of Sattara near Aurangabad was my hunting ground. Here on the top of a hill, stood a temple with an image of Khande Rai. By God's grace I demolished it, and forbade the temple dancers (muralis) to ply their shameful profession.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Satara (Maharashtra) Kalimat-i-Tayyibat, quoted in Sarkar, Jadu Nath, History of Aurangzeb, Vol. II, p. 94 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.62677/page/n293
Quotes from late medieval histories

Jacques Plante photo

“Hockey is an art. It requires speed, precision, and strength like other sports, but it also demands an extraordinary intelligence to develop a logical sequence of movements, a technique which is smooth, graceful and in rhythm with the rest of the game.”

Jacques Plante (1929–1986) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Jacques Plante," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep197802.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2005-05-24)

James Thurber photo

“My opposition lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Letter to Henry Brandon after an interview with him, explaining his opposition to interviews; quoted by Brandon in As We Are (1961)
Letters and interviews

Thomas Brooks photo

“It is the very nature of grace to make a man strive to be most eminent in that particular grace which is most opposed to his bosom sin.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 294.

John Howe photo
Slavoj Žižek photo
Richard III of England photo
James MacDonald photo
Johannes Tauler photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Hugh Latimer photo

“Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

Hugh Latimer (1485–1555) British bishop

To his friend Nicholas Ridley, as they were both about to be burned as heretics for their teachings and beliefs outside Balliol College, Oxford (16 October 1555); as quoted in History of the British Empire (1870) by William Francis Collier, p. 124; also in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, p. 36; and in The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1989) by Robert Andrews, p. 190.
Variants:
Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
As quoted in the Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, touching Matters of the Church (Foxe's Book of Martyrs) (1563) by John Foxe; also in The London Encyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of Science, Art, Literature, and Practical Mechanics (1829) by Thomas Tegg, p. 455
Be of good cheer, master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle in England, as I hope, by God's grace, shall never be put out.
As quoted in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction (1831) by Reuben Percy and John Timbs, p. 419
Be of good comfort, brother and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
As quoted in Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel (1845) by John Gillies and Horatius Bonar, p. 57
Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, play the man; We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
As quoted in An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1847) by Charles Bridges, p. 126, but he cites Foxe as source, so this is clearly a slight misquotation of Foxe's version.
Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust by God's grace shall never be put out.
As quoted in The Conscience of Culture (1953) by Everett Tilson, p. 116

“…aaaaahhhh…excuse me for being excited…I think I just saw a ghost…a flash of 1960 Di Stéfano or Puskás…that goal has just woken the spirit of Bernabéu himself…astonishing and mesmerizing skill and grace…”

Ray Hudson (1955) English footballer

[Mandis, Steven G., The Real Madrid Way: How Values Created the Most Successful Sports Team on the Planet, 2016, BenBella Books, https://books.google.fi/books/about/The_Real_Madrid_Way.html?id=IEbQDAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y, 978-1-942952-54-1]
After Zinedine Zidane scored the winning goal, a left-footed volley into the top corner, assisted by Roberto Carlos to make it 2–1, winning the Champions League trophy for Real Madrid.
2002 UEFA Champions League Final

Julian of Norwich photo
Thomas Brooks photo
Jane Austen photo
Halldór Laxness photo

“Although grace comes from above, that is not to say that everyone has the ability to accept to it.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Horace photo

“Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill
The hearer's soul, and move it at its will.”

Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto Et, quocumque uolent, animum auditoris agunto.

Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 99 (tr. John Conington)

Anne Brontë photo
Peter Greenaway photo
George W. Bush photo
Edith Hamilton photo
Henry Adams photo

“Was never eie did see that face,
Was never eare did heare that tong,
Was never minde did minde his grace,
That ever thought the travell long;
But eies and eares and ev'ry thought
Were with his sweete perfections caught.”

Mathew Roydon (1583–1622) English poet

An Elegie; or Friend's Passion for his Astrophill, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Michel De Montaigne photo
William Hazlitt photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“What grace is to the body, good sense is to the mind.”

La bonne grâce est au corps ce que le bon sens est à l'esprit.
Maxim 67.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Gregory Scott Paul photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo
Francis Escudero photo
Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah photo

“But, those who did good to Allah and the people, Allah will give them reward by bestowing upon them His grace.”

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) Lebanese faqih

The mutual love between Allah and His servants http://english.bayynat.org.lb/Doctrines/Themutual1.htm

Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma photo

“We are rulers on His behalf, I live because of His grace.”

Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma (1922–2013) Maharaja of Travancore

On his reverence to the temple and the Lord which has formed the centre of existence for the Travancore royalty for more than 300 years, in Royal vignettes: Travancore - Simplicity graces this House (30 March 2003) http://www.hindu.com/mag/2003/03/30/stories/2003033000700700.htm

Tipu Sultan photo

“With the grace of Prophet Muhammed and Allah, almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. Only a few are still not converted on the borders of Cochin State. I am determined to convert them also very soon. I consider this as Jehad to achieve that object.”

Tipu Sultan (1750–1799) Ruler of the Sultanate of Mysore

Tipu Sultan's Letter dated January 18, 1790, to Syed Abdul Dulai: cited in Bhasha Poshini of Chingam 10, 1099 (August, 1923), Article on Tipu Sultan by Sardar K.M. Panicker. Also quoted in Ravi Varma, " Tipu Sultan: As Known In Kerala" in Tipu Sultan: Villain or hero? : an anthology. (1993).
From Tipu Sultan's letters