Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2012, Sandy Hook Prayer Vigil (December 2012)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2012, Sandy Hook Prayer Vigil (December 2012)
T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader
On collecting money - "I Told Jonathan He Would Lose - TB Joshua" http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/180634-i-told-jonathan-he-would-lose-tb-joshua.html Premium Times, Nigeria (April 5 2015)
Mary I of England (1516–1558) Queen of England and Ireland
Proclamation concerning Religion (1553-08-18).
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
Letter to his wife, reprinted in Rilke’s Letters on Cézanne (1952, trans. 1985). (October 23, 1907)
Rilke's Letters
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter
Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic
Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Mystery of the Cross in Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, National Centre for Padre Pio, Barto, PA. p. 16.
Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 365.
“Grace in women has more effect than beauty.”
William Hazlitt book The Round Table
"On Manner"
The Round Table (1815-1817)
Aga Khan III (1877–1957) 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community
Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough & Time (1954)
John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician
§ 156
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)
Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church
Section 99
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Upon proclaiming a National Fast Day (30 March 1863)
1860s
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdrLQ7DpiWs "Biblical Series II: Genesis 1: Chaos & Order"
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), On the musicians of the Ospedale della Pieta (book VII)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2012, Re-election Speech (November 2012)
“Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.”
Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher
De Libero Arbitrio (388 - 395)
John Hart (1965) American author with multiple books and awards
Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 2.
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
Conversation on Epictetus and Montaigne
Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress
On her favourite style icon http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/features/tv-actresses-pick-their-favourite-style-icons-337/
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian
Niebuhr's preferred form, as declared by his widow
The Serenity Prayer (c. 1942)
Variant: God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer
Foreword to The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom (1987)
General sources
“Sin can read sin, but dimly scans high grace.”
John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal
Isaac http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse67.html (1833).
Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 18.
John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 98
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet
Meera Bai, in [ http://books.google.co.in/books?id=fpcvv5pGKWMC&pg=PA250 Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West], p. 250
Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems
Stolen Waters (1862), st. 1
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)
Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher
Essays on Woman (1996), The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace (1932)
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Orignially written as part of an "Essay on Modern Poets" this was published as a "Fragment on Whitman” (c. 1912) in The Ancient Track (2001) edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 192
Non-Fiction
Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church
2010s, Address to the United States Congress, Inauguration of the Jubilee Year of Mercy
Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer
"All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace"
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster
“Faith is the champion of grace, and love the nurse; but humility is the beauty of grace.”
Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan
Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 221.
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), pp. 78-79
H.P. Lovecraft book Pickman's Model
"Pickman's Model " - written 1926; first published in Weird Tales, Vol. 10, No. 4 (October 1927)
Fiction
Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia
Address to the World Evangelical Congress in Berlin (28 October 1966).
Context: This age above all ages is a period in history when it should be our prime duty to preach the Gospel of Grace to all our fellow men and women. The love shown in Christ by our God to mankind should constrain all of us who are followers and disciples of Christ to do all in our power to see to it that the Message of Salvation is carried to those of our fellows for whom Christ Our Saviour was sacrificed but who have not had the benefit of hearing the good news. Since nobody can interfere in the realm of God we should tolerate and live side by side with those of other faiths.
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian
On Grace & Free Choice, chap 14.(de Gratia Et Libero Arbitrio), Daniel O'Donovan, trans., Introduction, Bernard McGinn, Cistercian Publications, 1988, p. 37. https://books.google.com/books?id=ODcqAAAAYAAJ&q=%22not+as+if+grace+did+one+half+of+the+work+and+free+choice+the+other%22&dq=%22not+as+if+grace+did+one+half+of+the+work+and+free+choice+the+other%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT7I76jK_TAhUFNiYKHZrCB3gQ6AEIODAE (Note: Fr. Harry J. McSorley, C.S.P. Commenting on this teaching of Bernard, states: "We are indebted to Bernard of Clairvaux … for the clarification that grace and free will are not related as partial causes - which would be a false synergism - but as total causes of the act of justification, each on its own proper plane. Bernard maintains the Catholic-Augustinian tradition by insisting that man's natural freedom (liberum arbitrium) remains even after the fall. It is a wretched, but nonetheless integral free will. This natural freedom of the will, possessed by the just and sinners alike, enables us to will, but not to will what is good. It is grace alone that gives us good will." Luther, Right or Wrong, (1969), Newman Press / Augsburg Publishing House, p. 133 https://books.google.com/books?id=KaRAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA133&dq=%22for+the+clarification+that+grace+and+free+will+are+not+related+as+partial+causes%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX5fjGjK_TAhUKRSYKHdmfBCsQ6AEIIjAA#v=onepage&q=%22for%20the%20clarification%20that%20grace%20and%20free%20will%20are%20not%20related%20as%20partial%20causes%22&f=false <br class="br">Context: It’s not as if grace did one half of the work and free choice the other; each does the whole work, in its own peculiar contribution. Grace does the whole work, and so does free choice – with this one qualification: That whereas the whole is done in free choice, so is the whole done of grace.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind. He has given us the chance, where we’ve been lost, to find our best selves. We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancor and complacency, and short-sightedness and fear of each other -- but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation. Sporadically, our eyes are open: When eight of our brothers and sisters are cut down in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary school. But I hope we also see the 30 precious lives cut short by gun violence in this country every single day; the countless more whose lives are forever changed -- the survivors crippled, the children traumatized and fearful every day as they walk to school, the husband who will never feel his wife’s warm touch, the entire communities whose grief overflows every time they have to watch what happened to them happen to some other place. The vast majority of Americans -- the majority of gun owners -- want to do something about this. We see that now. And I'm convinced that by acknowledging the pain and loss of others, even as we respect the traditions and ways of life that make up this beloved country -- by making the moral choice to change, we express God’s grace.
“His form combined in one the strength of a man and a woman's grace.”
Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography
Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 3
Context: The sound of the trumpets died away and Orlando stood stark naked. No human being, since the world began, has ever looked more ravishing. His form combined in one the strength of a man and a woman's grace.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind. He has given us the chance, where we’ve been lost, to find our best selves. We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancor and complacency, and short-sightedness and fear of each other -- but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
The final issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung (18 May 1849)'Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, Vol. VI, p. 503,
Variant translation: We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism.
Context: Did you not read our articles about the June revolution, and was not the essence of the June revolution the essence of our paper?
Why then your hypocritical phrases, your attempt to find an impossible pretext?
We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Statement during National Prayer Breakfast (27 September 2010), "Obama 'Christian By Choice': President Responds To Questioner" by Charles Babington and Darlene Superville, Associated Press (28 September 2010) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/obama-christian-by-choice_n_742124.html?view=print - Video : President Obama: "I am a Christian By Choice" at ABC News (29 September 2010) http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/09/president-obama-i-am-a-christian-by-choicethe-precepts-of-jesus-spoke-to-me.html <br class="br">2010 <br class="br">Context: I'm a Christian by choice. My family didn't — frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn't raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as they would treat me. I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God. But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace. That's what I strive to do. That's what I pray to do every day. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith. … One thing I want to emphasize, having spoken about something that obviously relates to me very personally, as president of the United States I'm also somebody who deeply believes that part of the bedrock strength of this country is that it embraces people of many faiths and no faith… that this is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and that their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own.<br>That's part of what makes this country what it is.
“Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.”
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author
Ash-Wednesday (1930)
Context: Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.
“This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace.”
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace. The grace of the families who lost loved ones. The grace that Reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons. The grace described in one of my favorite hymnals -- the one we all know: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.
“A day of grace is yet held out to us.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin
Final lines.
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Concluding Remarks
Context: A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and South have been guilty before God; and the Christian church has a heavy account to answer. Not by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty, and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved, — but by repentance, justice and mercy; for, not surer is the eternal law by which the millstone sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law, by which injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath of Almighty God!
Paul of Tarsus (5–67) Early Christian apostle and missionary
2:1-10 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2&version=KJV;SBLGNT (KJV) <br class="br">Epistle to the Ephesians <br class="br">Context: And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.<br>But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: But I don't think God wants us to stop there. For too long, we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present. Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career. Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate. Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal justice system and leads us to make sure that that system is not infected with bias; that we embrace changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve make us all safer and more secure. Maybe we now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we don't realize it, so that we're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal. So that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote. By recognizing our common humanity by treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin or the station into which they were born, and to do what’s necessary to make opportunity real for every American -- by doing that, we express God’s grace.
“When Thou didst regard me,
Thine eyes imprinted in me Thy grace:”
John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
Context: When Thou didst regard me,
Thine eyes imprinted in me Thy grace:
For this didst Thou love me again,
And thereby mine eyes did merit
To adore what in Thee they saw. ~ 32
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer
Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: The true wisdom is to be always seasonable, and to change with a good grace in changing circumstances. To love playthings well as a child, to lead an adventurous and honourable youth, and to settle when the time arrives, into a green and smiling age, is to be a good artist in life and deserve well of yourself and your neighbour.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace. The grace of the families who lost loved ones. The grace that Reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons. The grace described in one of my favorite hymnals -- the one we all know: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.
“Since Thou hast regarded me,
Grace and beauty hast Thou given me.”
John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
Context: Despise me not,
For if I was swarthy once
Thou canst regard me now;
Since Thou hast regarded me,
Grace and beauty hast Thou given me. ~ 33
John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge -- including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now. Removing the flag from this state’s capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought -- the cause of slavery -- was wrong -- the imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong. It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Statement during National Prayer Breakfast (27 September 2010), "Obama 'Christian By Choice': President Responds To Questioner" by Charles Babington and Darlene Superville, Associated Press (28 September 2010) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/obama-christian-by-choice_n_742124.html?view=print - Video : President Obama: "I am a Christian By Choice" at ABC News (29 September 2010) http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/09/president-obama-i-am-a-christian-by-choicethe-precepts-of-jesus-spoke-to-me.html <br class="br">2010 <br class="br">Context: I'm a Christian by choice. My family didn't — frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn't raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as they would treat me. I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God. But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace. That's what I strive to do. That's what I pray to do every day. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith. … One thing I want to emphasize, having spoken about something that obviously relates to me very personally, as president of the United States I'm also somebody who deeply believes that part of the bedrock strength of this country is that it embraces people of many faiths and no faith… that this is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and that their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own.<br>That's part of what makes this country what it is.
“If we can find that grace, anything is possible. If we can tap that grace, everything can change.”
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: Clem understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other. That my liberty depends on you being free, too. That history can’t be a sword to justify injustice, or a shield against progress, but must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past -- how to break the cycle. A roadway toward a better world. He knew that the path of grace involves an open mind -- but, more importantly, an open heart. That’s what I’ve felt this week -- an open heart. That, more than any particular policy or analysis, is what’s called upon right now, I think -- what a friend of mine, the writer Marilynne Robinson, calls “that reservoir of goodness, beyond, and of another kind, that we are able to do each other in the ordinary cause of things.” That reservoir of goodness. If we can find that grace, anything is possible. If we can tap that grace, everything can change.
Variant translations: <br class="br">Zeus has led us on to know,<br>the Helmsman lays it down as law<br>that we must suffer, suffer into truth.<br>We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart<br>the pain of pain remembered comes again,<br>and we resist, but ripeness comes as well.<br>From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench<br>there comes a violent love. <br class="br">Robert Fagles, The Oresteia (1975) <br class="br">God, whose law it is<br>that he who learns must suffer.<br>And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget<br>falls drop by drop upon the heart,<br>and in our own despite, against our will,<br>comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. <br class="br">Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way (1930), pp. 61 and 194 ( Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=D3QwvF3GWOkC&lpg=PA61&ots=BacvHvGm6e&dq=%22And%20in%20our%20own%20despite%2C%20against%20our%20will%2C%20Comes%20wisdom%22%20-kennedy&pg=PA194#v=onepage&q=%22our%20own%20despite%22&f=false) <br class="br">Robert F. Kennedy quoted these lines in his speech announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968. His version http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkonmlkdeath.html: <br class="br">Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget<br>falls drop by drop upon the heart<br>until, in our own despair, against our will,<br>comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. <br class="br">Variant translations of πάθει μάθος: <br class="br">By suffering comes wisdom. <br class="br">The reward of suffering is experience. <br class="br">Wisdom comes alone through suffering. <br class="br">Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 176–183, as translated by Ian Johnston ( Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=qz1HpBZ1fTwC&lpg=PA13&ots=C7aohrZRF1&dq=Drips%20in%20our%20hearts%20as%20we%20try%20to%20sleep%2C&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=Drips%20in%20our%20hearts%20as%20we%20try%20to%20sleep,&f=false)
“Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love — a simple duty.”
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic
" To Frances S. Osgood http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/595/" (1845). <br class="br">Context: Thou wouldst be loved? — then let thy heart<br>From its present pathway part not!<br>Being everything which now thou art,<br>Be nothing which thou art not.<br>So with the world thy gentle ways,<br>Thy grace, thy more than beauty,<br>Shall be an endless theme of praise,<br>And love — a simple duty.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)
Context: p>Everyone who realizes what those glorious patriots knew on that day -- that change does not come from Washington, but to Washington; that change has always been built on our willingness, We The People, to take on the mantle of citizenship -- you are marching.And that’s the lesson of our past. That's the promise of tomorrow -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. That when millions of Americans of every race and every region, every faith and every station, can join together in a spirit of brotherhood, then those mountains will be made low, and those rough places will be made plain, and those crooked places, they straighten out towards grace, and we will vindicate the faith of those who sacrificed so much and live up to the true meaning of our creed, as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.</p
Bonaventure (1221–1274) franciscan, bishop, cardinal, Doctor of the Church, catholic saint
The Life of Saint Francis of Assisi
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
"Prayers" (1770)
Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)
Original: (fr) L’Éternel a ses desseins de toute éternité. Si la prière est d’accord avec ses volontés immuables, il est très inutile de lui demander ce qu’il a résolu de faire. Si on le prie de faire le contraire de ce qu’il a résolu, c’est le prier d’être faible, léger, inconstant; c’est croire qu’il soit tel, c’est se moquer de lui. Ou vous lui demandez une chose juste; en ce cas il la doit, et elle se fera sans qu’on l’en prie; c’est même se défier de lui que lui faire instance ou la chose est injuste, et alors on l’outrage. Vous êtes digne ou indigne de la grâce que vous implorez: si digne, il le sait mieux que vous; si indigne, on commet un crime de plus en demandant ce qu’on ne mérite pas.
En un mot, nous ne faisons des prières à Dieu que parce que nous l’avons fait à notre image. Nous le traitons comme un bacha, comme un sultan qu’on peut irriter ou apaiser.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (1946) primate of the Russian Orthodox Church
24 September 2015 http://www.pravmir.com/west-should-learn-from-russia-to-accept-muslim-refugees-patriarch-kirill/ at a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at his residence in Peredelkino, Moscow Region.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian
Full version of the original (ca. 1942)
The Serenity Prayer (c. 1942)
Bertrand Russell book Why I Am Not a Christian
What is a Christian? https://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html (1927) <br class="br">1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
“Be good, love the Lord, pray for those who do not know Him. What a great grace it is to know God!”
Josephine Bakhita (1868–1947) Italian saint and former slave
Quoted in "Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947)", The Holy See https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20001001_giuseppina-bakhita_en.html.
“Look at the grace and sweetness of men and women in the street...”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat
"Of Experiment and of the Genius of Discoveries," p. 37
An Examination of the Philosophy of Francis Bacon (1836)
Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter
Family Business
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)
Charles Portis book True Grit
Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 3, p. 37 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'
“When grace moves in… guilt moves out”
Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer
Source: Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions
“Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.”
Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist
Source: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
“I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner
Variant: The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
Source: The Kite Runner
“Grace is everywhere, like lenses that go unnoticed because you are looking through them.”
Philip Yancey book What's So Amazing About Grace?
Source: What's So Amazing About Grace?
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
Source: John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings
“Every ending is a new beginning. Through the grace of God, we can always start again. (Page 120.)”
Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer
Source: Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness And Making Miracles