Quotes about grace
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“Grace and peace from God to you, respected, honoured, wise clement, gracious and beloved Masters: An exceedingly unfortunate affair has happened to me, in that I have been publicly accused before your worships of having reviled you in unseemly words and, be it said with all respect, of having called you heretics, my gracious rulers of the State. I am so far from applying this name to you, that I should as soon think of calling heaven hell. For all my life I have thought and spoken of you in terms of praise and honour, gentlemen of Abtzell, as I do to-day, and, as God favours me, shall do to the end of my days. But it happened not long ago when I was preaching against the Catabaptists that I used these words: 'The Catabaptists are now doing so much mischief to the upright citizens of Abtzell and are showing so great insolence, that nothing could be more infamous. You see, gentle sirs, with what modesty I grieved on your account, because the turbulent Catabaptists caused you so much trouble. Indeed I suspect that the Catabaptists are the very people who have set this sermon against me in circulation among you, for they do many of those things which do not become true Christians. Therefore, gentle and wise sirs, I beg most earnestly that you will have me exculpated before the whole community, and, if occasion arise, that you will have this letter read in public assembly. Sirs, I assure you in the name of God our Saviour, in these perilous times you have never been our of my thoughts and my solicitious anxiety; and if in any way I shall be able to serve you I will spare no pains to do so. In addition to the fact that I never use such terms even against my enemies, let me say that it never entered my mind to apply such insulting epithets to you, pious and wise sirs. Sufficient of this. May God preserve you in safety, and may He put a curb on these unbridled falsehoods which are being scattered everywhere, which is an evidence of some great peril - and may He hold your worships and the whole state in the true faith of Christ@ Take this letter of mine in good part, for I could not suffer that so base a falsehood against me should lie uncontradicted.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

Letter to Abtzell February 12, 1526 (vi., 473), ibid, p.250-251

Life, God, Pain, People

“A man may as certainly miscarry by his seeming righteousness and supposed graces, as by gross sins; and that is, when a man doth trust in these as his righteousness before God, for the satisfying His justice, appeasing His wrath, procuring His favor, and obtaining his own pardon.”

Joseph Alleine (1634–1668) Pastor, author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 540.

God, Justice

“But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.”

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

“The Book-End,” Columbus Dispatch (1923) Collecting Himself (1989).
From other writings

Life, Men, Soul, Heart

“[R]adical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism. The destruction of the World Trade Center was meant not only to wreak terror. Like the smashing of the Bamiyan Buddhas, it was meant to obliterate greatness and beauty, elegance and grace. These artifacts represented civilization embodied in stone or steel. They had to be destroyed. This worship of death and destruction is a nihilism of a ferocity unlike any since the Nazis burned books, then art, then whole peoples. Goebbels would have marvelled at the recruitment tape for al Qaeda, a two-hour orgy of blood and death: image after image of brutalized Muslims shown in various poses of victimization, followed by glorious images of desecration of the infidel-mutilated American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of the USS Cole, mangled bodies at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2000s, 2001, The Enemy is not Islam. It is Nihilism (2001)

Death, People, Books, World

“Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Beauty
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

Beauty, Imagination

“All this bliss we have by Mercy and Grace: which manner of bliss we might never have had nor known but if that property of Goodness which is God had been contraried: whereby we have this bliss. For wickedness hath been suffered to rise contrary to the Goodness, and the Goodness of Mercy and Grace contraried against the wickedness and turned all to goodness and to worship, to all these that shall be saved. For it is the property in God which doeth good against evil. Thus Jesus Christ that doeth good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of Him, — where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth, — with all the sweet Keeping of Love that endlessly followeth.”

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

Summations, Chapter 59
Context: In all the Beholding methought it was needful to see and to know that we are sinners, and do many evils that we ought to leave, and leave many good deeds undone that we ought to do: wherefore we deserve pain and wrath. And notwithstanding all this, I saw soothfastly that our Lord was never wroth, nor ever shall be. For He is God: Good, Life, Truth, Love, Peace; His Clarity and His Unity suffereth Him not to be wroth. For I saw truly that it is against the property of His Might to be wroth, and against the property of His Wisdom, and against the property of His Goodness. God is the Goodness that may not be wroth, for He is not but Goodness: our soul is oned to Him, unchangeable Goodness, and between God and our soul is neither wrath nor forgiveness in His sight. For our soul is so fully oned to God of His own Goodness that between God and our soul may be right nought.
Context: In all the Beholding methought it was needful to see and to know that we are sinners, and do many evils that we ought to leave, and leave many good deeds undone that we ought to do: wherefore we deserve pain and wrath. And notwithstanding all this, I saw soothfastly that our Lord was never wroth, nor ever shall be. For He is God: Good, Life, Truth, Love, Peace; His Clarity and His Unity suffereth Him not to be wroth. For I saw truly that it is against the property of His Might to be wroth, and against the property of His Wisdom, and against the property of His Goodness. God is the Goodness that may not be wroth, for He is not but Goodness: our soul is oned to Him, unchangeable Goodness, and between God and our soul is neither wrath nor forgiveness in His sight. For our soul is so fully oned to God of His own Goodness that between God and our soul may be right nought.
And to this understanding was the soul led by love and drawn by might in every Shewing: that it is thus our good Lord shewed, and how it is thus in the truth of His great Goodness. And He willeth that we desire to learn it — that is to say, as far as it belongeth to His creature to learn it. For all things that the simple soul understood, God willeth that they be shewed and known. For the things that He will have privy, mightily and wisely Himself He hideth them, for love. For I saw in the same Shewing that much privity is hid, which may never be known until the time that God of His goodness hath made us worthy to see it; and therewith I am well-content, abiding our Lord’s will in this high marvel. And now I yield me to my Mother, Holy Church, as a simple child oweth.

Love, God, Suffering, Evil

“The Pelagians produce such Scriptures as these: 'The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you' (2 Chron. xv. 2). 'Turn ye, …and I will turn unto you' (Zech. i. 3) From which they would infer, that the grace of God is proportioned to the merits of men. But all this would be to no purpose, if they would but compare one Scripture with another; for example: 'Turn us, O God of our salvation' (Ps lxxxv. 4); and, 'after that I was turned, I repented' (Jer. xxxi. 19); and, 'turn us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

Lam v. 21
De causa Dei contra Pelagium

Men, God

“Plato was continually saying to Xenocrates, "Sacrifice to the Graces."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Xenocrates, 3.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 4: The Academy

“This was a delectable Sight and a restful Shewing, that it is so without end. The beholding of this while we are here is full pleasing to God and full great profit to us; and the soul that thus beholdeth, it maketh it like to Him that is beheld, and oneth it in rest and peace by His grace. And this was a singular joy and bliss to me that I saw Him sitting: for the secureness of sitting sheweth endless dwelling.”

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

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 68

God, Peace, Soul, Joy

“Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest.”

John Keats The Eve of St. Agnes

Stanza 25
Poems (1820), The Eve of St. Agnes

“The Devil doesn't make us do anything. The Devil, for example, doesn't make us mean. Rather, when we're mean, we make the Devil. Literally. Our actions create him. Conversely, when we behave with compassion, generosity, and grace, we create God in the world.”

Tom Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)

God, World

“BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY DAVID WHITMER MARTIN HARRIS”

Martin Harris (1783–1875) Book of Mormon witness

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830)

Men, God, People, Faith

“Fellini was a man of many selves and contradictions: he quoted Dante with genuine emotion while executing pornographic doodles on the table napkin then balked at paying the lunch bill while handing out millions of lire to the beggars of Rome. Although he boasted he was heterosexual, he nonetheless directed one of the greatest bisexual films of all time. He was Mr. Cool as well as the Nutty Professor. He contains multitudes and the journey to his center never ceases. Quite simply, you end up cherishing an Onion Man with no center. Federico really had a rough time of it but pretended otherwise and had the grace never to expose his personal problems in public. And then there are the films that continuously generate new meanings. For example, 8 1/2 contains alembicated allusions to Hamlet of tremendous power and beauty that resonate in the mind long after the film is over.”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

On Fellini's personality, in Indiewire (April, 2003)

Beauty, Quotes, Problem, Time

“So long as the figures 'now superseded' and the academic projections based upon them held sway, it was possible for politicians to shrug their shoulders. With so much of immediate and indisputable importance on their hands, why should they attend to what was forecast for the end of the century, when most of them would be not only out of office but dead and gone? … It was not for them to heed the cries of anguish from those of their own people who already saw their towns being changed, their native places turned into foreign lands, and themselves displaced as if by a systematic colonisation. For these the much vaunted compassion of the parties and politicians was not available: the parties and the politicians preferred to be busy making speeches on race relations; and if any of their number dared to tell them the truth, even less than the whole truth, about what was happening and what would happen here in England, they denounced them as racialist and turned them out of doors. They could feel safe; for they said in their hearts: 'If trouble comes, it will not be in our time; let the next generation see to it!' … The explosive which will blow us asunder is there and the fuse is burning, but the fuse is shorter than had been supposed. The transformation which I referred to earlier as being without even a remote parallel in our history, the occupation of the hearts of this metropolis and of towns and cities across England by a coloured population amounting to millions, this before long will be past denying. It is possible that the people of this country will, with good or ill grace, accept what they did not ask for, did not want and were not told of. My own judgment— it is a judgment which the politician has a duty to form to the best of his ability— I have not feared to give: it is— to use words I used two years and a half ago— that 'the people of England will not endure it'.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Carshalton and Banstead Young Conservatives at Carshalton Hall (15 February 1971), from Still to Decide (Eliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 202-203.
1970s

People, Truth, Fear, Feeling

“In private prayer we have a far greater advantage as so the exercise of our own gifts and graces and parts that we have in public…in public duties we are more passive, but in private duties we are more active. Now, the more our gifts and parts and graces are exercised, the more they are strengthened and increased. All acts strengthen habits. The more sin is acted, the more it is strengthened. And so it is with our gifts and graces; the more they are acted, the more they are strengthened.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

The Secret Key To Heaven, 1665

Exercises, Parting

“His face was lit up with a divine look as lie uttered these words. Though not a handsome man, and ungainly in his person, yet in his enthusiasm he seemed the personification of manly beauty, and that sad face of his looked down in kindness upon these ignorant blacks with a grace that could not be excelled. He really seemed of another world.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 296

Lie, World, Sadness, Beauty

“If we would We must self forgo if God we would attain, his grace must in us grow and ease us from all pain God discern,
The world we must despise,
His love and hate must learn,
See all things with His eyes.
And we must self forgo
If God we would attain,
His grace must in us grow
And ease us from all pain.
So shall we sing His praise
And be at one with Him,
In peace our voices raise
In the celestial hymn,
That with quadruple harmony
And all mellifluous melody,
In Heaven resounds eternally.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Source: The Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love, p. 124-5

Love, God, Pain, Hate

“As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. Somehow, I early developed the notion that he had done this by falling from a tree. As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God's rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word "beautiful."”

Norman Maclean (1902–1990) American author and scholar

"A River Runs Through It", p. 2
A River Runs Through It (1976)

God, Beauty, Nature, Tree

“Augustine of Hippo used to say that, but for God's grace, he should have been capable of committing any crime; and it is when we feel this sincerely, that we are most likely to be really improving, and best able to give assistance to others without moral loss to ourselves.”

Henry Liddon (1829–1890) British theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 547.

God, Feeling, Loss, Sincerity

“Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Post, comp.os.linux.announce newsgroup, Google Groups, 1996-06-09, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=cola-liw-834355743-12037-0%40liw.clinet.fi, <br class="br">1990s, 1995-99

People, Thinking

“The starry, fragile windflower,
Poised above in airy grace,
Virgin white, suffused with blushes,
Shyly droops her lovely face.”

Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) American novelist, poet

The First Flowers; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 874.

Love

“Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Part II, line 5
Pleasures of Hope (1799)

“Notwithstanding all the guidance of divine grace Israel did not know the time of her visitation. [-] The great majority of the people rejected the Messiah with the cry: 'His blood be upon us and upon our children”

Michael von Faulhaber (1869–1952) German Roman Catholic Cardinal

Matt. xxvii, 25
Sermon Four, p. 79
Sermon Four

Children, People, Time, Cry

“The grace of God is the thing that is needful. One should pray for the grace of God.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 301]

God

“As I look at drunkard men walking the streets of Montgomery and of other cities every day, I find myself saying, “But by the grace of God, you too would be a drunkard.” As I look at those who have lost balance of themselves and those who are giving their lives to a tragic life of pleasure and throwing away everything they have in riotous living, I find myself saying, “But by the grace of God, I too would be here.” And when you see that point, you cannot be arrogant. But you walk through life with a humility that takes away the self-centeredness that makes you a disintegrated personality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)

Life, Men, God, Pleasure

“Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources.
Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Visions and Ideals

Life, Youth, Beauty, Dreams

“Great talents are not, before God, a substitute for love for Himself; the possession of a profound intellect does not free any man from the obligations resting on the heart for purity and holiness; a reputation for attainments in science does not settle the question whether he is righteous before his Maker; refined manners are not, in the sight of God, a substitute for the graces of the Spirit; God does not justify man on the ground of human learning; attainments in chemistry, anatomy, geology, botany, astronomy, or skill in sculpture and painting, — these do not prepare a man to die.”

Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 114.

Love, God, Question, Learning

“The Lord took pity on me thousands upon thousands of times, because he saw within me that I was prepared, but that I was ignorant of what to do in view of my situation; because many were trying to prevent this mission. They were talking among themselves behind my back, and saying: 'Why is this fellow throwing himself into danger among enemies who know not God?' Not from malice, but having no liking for it; likewise, as I myself can testify, they perceived my rusticity. And I was not quick to recognize the grace that was then in me; I now know that I should have done so earlier.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

The Confession (c. 452?)

God, Time

“Yet in all this time, from the beginning to the end, I had two manner of beholdings. The one was endless continuant love, with secureness of keeping, and blissful salvation, — for of this was all the Shewing. The other was of the common teaching of Holy Church, in which I was afore informed and grounded — and with all my will having in use and understanding. And the beholding of this went not from me: for by the Shewing I was not stirred nor led therefrom in no manner of point, but I had therein teaching to love it and find it good : whereby I might, by the help of our Lord and His grace, increase and rise to more heavenly knowing and higher loving.”

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

Summations, Chapter 46

Love, Understanding, Time, Help

“Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on December 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pearl-harbor-2001 of Pearl Harbor (25 May 2001) <br class="br">Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Love, Quotes

“The state of conformity is an imitation of grace.”

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

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Great Beast (1947), p. 124
Context: The state of conformity is an imitation of grace. By a strange mystery — which is connected with the power of the social element — a profession can confer on quite ordinary men in their exercise of it, virtues which, if they were extended to all circumstances of life, would make of them heroes or saints.
But the power of the social element makes these virtues natural. Accordingly they need a compensation.

“Nor would I scruple, with a due regard,
To read sometimes a rude unpolished bard,
Among whose labours I may find a line,
Which from unsightly rust I may refine,
And, with a better grace, adopt it into mine.”
Nec dubitem versus hirsuti saepe poetae Suspensus lustrare, et vestigare legendo, Sicubi se quaedam forte inter commoda versu Dicta meo ostendant, quae mox melioribus ipse Auspiciis proprios possim mihi vertere in usus, Detersa prorsus prisca rubigine scabra.

Marco Girolamo Vida (1485–1566) Italian bishop

Book III, line 196
De Arte Poetica (1527)

Reading

“These same interior, enlightened persons Have the love of God before them in their inward vision Whenever they want, as drawing or calling in towards unity. For they see and feel that the Father with the Son by means of the Holy Spirit stand embraced with all the elect and are brought back with eternal love into the unity of their nature. This unity is constantly drawing or calling in all that has been born out of it naturally or by grace. And therefore these enlightened people are lifted up with free mind above reason to a bare vision devoid of images (The imageless place of spirit vision). There lives the eternal invitation of God’s unity, and with imageless naked understanding they go beyond all works and all practices and all things to the summit of their spirit. There their naked understanding is penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. The bare elevated will is transformed and penetrated with fathomless love just as iron is penetrated by the fire. And the bare elevated memory finds itself caught and established In a fathomless absence of images. Thus the created image is united threefold wise above reason to its eternal image, Which is the source of its being and of its life.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Little Book of Enlightenment (c. 1364)

Love, Life, God, People

“Under his rule, assisted by the greatest captain of our age, and his inspiration, we saw the Confederate States, based upon the idea that our race must be slaves, and slaves forever, battered to pieces and scattered to the four winds; under his rule, and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving the slave-holders three months' grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper, which, though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Though we waited long, we saw all this and more.
1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Hate, Age, Idea, Time

“A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over his eyes so that he does not see his defects but considers them signs of charm and intelligence and recounts them to his friends as if they were clever and witty.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Acontece tener un padre un hijo feo y sin gracia alguna, y el amor que le tiene le pone una venda en los ojos para que no vea sus faltas, antes las juzga por discreciones y lindezas y las cuenta a sus amigos por agudezas y donaires.
Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Prologue

Love, Feeling, Intelligence

“Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Observer (London, October 29, 1989).

“For people like us it is necessary to be a bit stronger, more self-critical, more observant than the usual run. Whether we happen to come already enhanced with these qualities, as some have claimed, or whether our situation invests them in us, we have traditionally - and we do have a long and proud tradition - been a little finer, a little firmer, more sensitive and flexible than others… There will be times when only your own spine can support you, moments when only your own wit can inspire you, days when nothing but exacting self-control can raise you from bed, nights when nothing but your word can impel you into society. But of all these disciplines, there is nothing you must hold to more sternly than to be kind and sympathetic. The easiest armor to put on is always cruelty. That armor will, indeed, see you through everything. Vicious condescension toward those without your strength can make you feel momentarily superior. But that easy armor must be forgone. Don't ever curdle that creamy brow with lines of easy disdain, or curl those lips with a popular sneer. Of all the models available, the one of gentleman in our late war is most succinct: Face what you have to face with humor, dignity, and style; protect yourself with knightly grace; have contempt for your own weakness and never encourage it in others; but never, Ralph, never for an instant permit yourself to feel anything other than pity and deepest sympathy for unfortunate comrades who have, after all, fallen in the same battle.”

Robert Patrick (playwright) (1937) Playwright, poet, lyricist, short story writer, novelist

One of Those People
Untold Decades: Seven Comedies of Gay Romance (1988)

War, People, Feeling, Support

“Surrey, the Granville of a former age:
Matchless his pen, victorious was his lance;
Bold in the lists, and graceful in the dance.”

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) English Earl

Alexander Pope "Windsor-Forest" (1713), line 292
Criticism

Age, Victory, Dance

“The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, duties, and pursuits of men and women. Women will not become less gentle and graceful, but men will become more so. Women will not neglect the care and education of their children, but men will find themselves ennobled and refined by sharing those duties with them; and will receive, in return, co-operation and sympathy in the discharge of various other duties, now deemed inappropriate to women. The more women become rational companions, partners in business and in thought, as well as in affection and amusement, the more highly will men appreciate home.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) <br class="br">Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/60/12260.html, vol. 1, letter 34

Women, Men, Children, Education

“Just try and keep up with those feet of his sometime! Try and look graceful while thinking where your right hand should be, and how your head should be held, and which foot you end the next eight bars on, and whether you're near enough to the steps to leap up six of them backward without looking. Not to mention those Astaire rhythms. Did you ever count the different tempos he can think up in three minutes?”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Ginger Rogers in Evans, Harry. "Ginger, Leila, and Fred." Family Circle, May 8, 1936. (M).

Thinking

“I can't tell you how much it means to have Craig and my mom here tonight. Like Craig, I can feel my dad looking down on us, just as I've felt his presence in every grace-filled moment of my life. At 6-foot-6, I've often felt like Craig was looking down on me too … literally. But the truth is, both when we were kids and today, he wasn't looking down on me. He was watching over me.”

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

2000s, Democratic National Convention speech (2008)

Life, Truth, Feeling, Moms

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

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Art of Poetry, p. 175

Soul

“Thro' many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.”

John Newton Olney Hymns

Olney Hymns (1779), Amazing Grace

Home

“The outcome of the Reformation was the victory, not of Luther's perception of grace in all its purity and costliness, but of the vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 49.
Discipleship (1937), Costly Grace

Victory

“I am working for the courage to admit the truth that Bertolt Brecht has written; he says, "It takes courage to say that the good were defeated not because they were good, but because they were weak."
I cherish the mercy and the grace of women’s work. But I know there is new work that we must undertake as well: that new work will make defeat detestable to us. That new women’s work will mean we will not die trying to stand up: we will live that way: standing up.
I came too late to help my mother to her feet.
By way of everlasting thanks to all of the women who have helped me to stay alive I am working never to be late again.”

June Jordan (1936–2002) Poet, essayist, playwright, feminist and bisexual activist

"Many Rivers To Cross" (1981)

Women, Truth, Way, Courage

“In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder, when the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organization, and when broken hearts bleed pain in darkness without the relief of compassion, the voice of an exceptional poet producing exceptional work is not something the world can afford to dismiss.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

Visions of the Poets, p. 247
Book Sources, The American Poet Who Went Home Again (2008)

Pain, Age, World, Heart

“You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since, — on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 44

Life, God, Feeling, Boy

“As for the woman styling herself Mother Teresa, I can attest that until I wrote my little pamphlet, she had been the recipient, the beneficiary, of a twenty-five year Niagra of one-hundred percent favorable publicity in every secular, Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic, or non-religious outlet of any kind at all in the media. Only by the grace of my intervention [laughter] could it not be said, when she died, that no one had ever said a single word against her; and that no one had ever pointed out that she had fawned on the Duvalier family in Haiti and said that they were the Lord's anointed and beloved of the poor.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2000, "Hostility Of America to Religion" (2000)

Family, Laughter

“Prince Charming, prince of the mockers —
compared with him the foulest of sinners
is grace incarnate…”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Poem without a Hero (1963)

“I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands. In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn. Baby, drink milk. Baby, play ball. And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief.”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempe, (2006)

Imagination, Drink, Thinking, Animals

“Come, my love, the stage is waiting,
Be the one to save my saving grace.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

"Jesus Saves, I Spend"
Marry Me (2007)

Love, Waiting

“There is no such way to attain to greater measures of grace, as for a man to live up to that little grace he has.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Quotes from secondary sources, Smooth Stones Taken From Ancient Brooks, 1860

Way

“God hath in truth testified in His Book and so also have testified the company of His angels, His Messengers and those endued with divine knowledge, that thou hast believed in God and in His signs and that everyone is guided aright by virtue of thy guidance. This is indeed a boundless grace which God, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting, hath graciously conferred upon thee aforetime and will confer hereafter. And since thou didst believe in God before the creation, He hath in truth, at His own behest, raised thee up in every Revelation. There is no God but Him, the Sovereign Protector, the All-Glorious.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Tablet to the First Letter of the Living

God, Truth, Books, Angels

“Come, spur away,
I have no patience for a longer stay,
But must go down
And leave the chargeable noise of this great town.
I will the country see,
Where old simplicity,
Though hid in grey,
Doth look more gay
Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad:
Farewell, you city wits, that are
Almost at civil war;
'Tis time that I grow wise, when all the world grows mad.
More of my days
I will not spend to gain an idiot's praise;
Or to make sport
For some slight puny of the inns of court.
Then, worthy Stafford, say,
How shall we spend the day?
With what delights
Shorten the nights?
When from this tumult we are got secure,
Where mirth with all her freedom goes,
Yet shall no finger lose;
Where every word is thought, and every thought is pure.
There from the tree
We'll cherries pluck and pick the strawberry,
And every day
Go see the wholesome country girls make hay,
Whose brown hath lovelier grace
Than any painted face
That I do know
Hyde Park can show.”

Thomas Randolph (poet) (1605–1635) English poet and dramatist

"An Ode to Master Anthony Stafford, to hasten him into the Country"
Poems (pub. 1638)

War, World, Girl, Sport

“There is a fair woman in the west,
who is as bright as sunlight.
She wears a dress of the finest silk
and jewelry shines from her left, her right.
Her face is a charm, so full of grace,
lightly perfuming the breeze.
Climbing upward, she keeps watch for her loved one,
holding her sleeves, she faces the morning sun.
She hovers, she drifts through the sky,
waving her sleeves, she dances,
flies like the wind, like a cloud, in [a] trance.
Every so often, she glances at me,
but for me this beauty is out of reach.
Left alone, I lament my fate.”

Ruan Ji (210–263) One of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove

Poem XIX, translated by Wu Fusheng and Graham Hartill in The Poem of Ruan Ji (2006), p. 39, as reported in Constructing Irregular Theology (2009) by Paul S. Chung, p. 13

Love, Fate, Beauty, Sun

“My father was as proud of his eloquence as MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO could be for his life, and and for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strength — and his weakness, too. — His strength — for he was by nature eloquent — and his weakness — for he was hourly a dupe to it; and provided an occasion in life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one — (bating the case of a systematic misfortune)— he had all he wanted.— A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and the pain of the misfortune was as five”

Laurence Sterne book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

my father gained half in half, and consequently was as well again off, as if it had never befallen him.
Book V, Ch. 3.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)

Life, Pain, Pleasure, Nature

“The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Volume iii, p. 331
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Life

“When I was born good fairies clustered round my cradle, showering me with wit, beauty, grace, freedom from dandruff, natural piety and other great gifts, but the Wicked Fairy Carabosse (who had not been invited to the party) crept to my side and screamed "Let him be cursed with Inability To Do Little Jobs Around The House", and so it has always been.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

Beauty, Nature, Freedom, Housing

“Here in Manila, how can we worry about the traffic going to work or school, while some remote villages in our country don’t even have schools or jobs? We can’t keep complaining about potholes and floods in Metro Manila while the Cordillera lacks roads or Tawi-Tawi lacks water. We have to move forward together, and as Senator Grace says, our most neglected and vulnerable citizens must come first.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate

School, Water, Country

“It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work. Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

The Principle or Foundation

God, Horse

“There is mercy in every place,
And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace
And reconciles man to his lot.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 53.

Affliction

“In each case, the concept of chosenness played a central role. For Greeks and Armenians, the myth of ethnic election was both direct and transmitted. It was an act of God who had singled out a special community of His faithful to live according to His holy laws and receive His special blessings, the blessings being conditional on the holding of correct beliefs and the performance of sacred obligations. As with the Jews, the overriding purpose was to become a holy people beloved of God, a people of priests worthy of the status and location which God had bestowed on the community. But, unlike the Jews, Armenians and Greeks saw their election as a reward for receiving the true faith rejected by the Jews. They were therefore required to supplant the Jews as the chosen people, and become the heirs of a people who had fallen from grace. In this sense, the chosen status of Greeks and Armenians was a legacy from the Jewish people, and only much later did the Orthodox community of true believers become imbued with Greek culture and a sense of Greek-speaking community, and to the outside world Orthodoxy became synonymous with Greek culture and origins.”

Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) British academic

Source: Myths and Memories of the Nation (1999), Chapter: Greeks, Armenians and Jews.

God, People, World, Faith

“Cheap grace means justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. … Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin. That was the heresy of the enthusiasts, the Anabaptists and their kind. … Let him live like the rest of the world! Of course he would like to go and do something extraordinary, and it does demand a good deal of self-restraint to refrain from the attempt and content himself with living as the world lives. Yet it is imperative for the Christian to achieve renunciation, to practice self-effacement.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 43.
Discipleship (1937), Costly Grace

Life, World

“Not to the swift, the race:
Not to the strong, the fight:
Not to the righteous, perfect grace:
Not to the wise, the light.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Reliance http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2226.html, st. 1 (1904)

Light, Strong, Fight, Perfection

“The apparent discrepancy in the Gospel narrative aroused no doubt in my mind as to the literal truth of either of the texts. Indeed, my falling away from grace was not occasioned by any intellectual qualms; I accepted the theology of the Plymouth Brethren. In fact, I could hardly conceive of the existence of people who might doubt it. I simply went over to Satan's side; and to this hour I cannot tell why.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 5.

People, Truth

“In a traditional reading eating the apple was the original sin; but, as Gnostics understood the story, the two primordial humans were right to eat the apple. The God that commanded them not to do so was not the true God but only a demiurge, a tyrannical underling exulting in its power, while the serpent came to free them from slavery. True, when they ate the apple Adam and Eve fell from grace. This was indeed the Fall of Man – a fall into the dim world of everyday consciousness. But the Fall need not be final. Having eaten its fill from the Tree of Knowledge, humankind can then rise into a state of conscious innocence. When this happens, Herr C. declares, it will be ‘the final chapter in the history of the world.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

The Faith of Puppets: The Freedom of the Marionette (p. 8)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

God, World, History, Knowledge

“In America, the best model yet for the first woman president can be found among the Texas feminists, notably Governor Ann Richards. East Coast feminists, like Gloria Steinem, who created the smug, superior feminist smirk (done to an unctuous turn by NOW president Patricia Ireland), have failed to produce a credible persona for national leadership, partly because of their juvenile, jeering attitude towards men. The irony is that the legal and media world inhabited by Steinem and her cronies is filled with bookish white-collar men who are the only ones in the world who actually listen to feminists rhetoric and can be guilt-tripped into trying to obey it. … In Texas, unlike the urban Northeast, men are men. Women politicians in that state have the toughness and grit to handle men at their most macho. Southern women, particularly those of the plantation-belt, “iron magnolia” school, are able to get what they want and still retain their graceful femininity.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 55

Women, Men, World, School

“On January 3, 1992 a meeting of Russian and American scholars took place in the auditorium of a government building in Moscow. Two weeks earlier the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and the Russian Federation had become an independent country. As a result, the statue of Lenin which previously graced the stage of the auditorium had disappeared and instead the flag of the Russian Federation was now displayed on the front wall. The only problem, one American observed, was that the flag had been hung upside down. After this was pointed out to the Russian hosts, they quickly and quietly corrected the error during the first intermission.
The years after the Cold War witnessed the beginnings of dramatic changes in peoples’ identities and the symbols of those identities. Global politics began to be reconfigured along cultural lines. Upside-down flags were a sign of the transition, but more and more the flags are flying high and true, and Russians and other peoples are mobilizing and marching behind these and other symbols of their new cultural identities.”

Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Ch. 1: The New Era in World Politics, § 1 : Introduction: Flags And Cultural Identity

War, People, Error, Problem

“What do I want to take home from my summer vacation? Time. The wonderful luxury of being at rest. The days when you shut down the mental machinery that keeps life on track and let life simply wander. The days when you stop planning, analyzing, thinking and just are. Summer is my period of grace.”

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

Attributed

Life, Home, Thinking, Time

“He also said we should carve in the year and place where I was born, but I said no. As a man dies many times before he's dead, so does he wend from birth to birth until, by grace, he comes alive at last.”

Frederick Buechner book Godric

Godric (1980)

Birth, Time, Dead

“After secretly observing the unstudied grace of her movements, the most celebrated picture-maker of the province burned the implements of his craft, and began life anew as a trainer of performing elephants.”

Ernest Bramah (1868–1942) English author

The Story of Chang Tao, Melodious Vision and the Dragon
Kai Lung's Golden Hours (1922)

Life

“You will understand,” said the Weaponeer, “that a pattern for events exists. It is the function of such as myself to shape events so that they will fit the pattern.” He bent, with a graceful sweep of arm, and seized a small jagged pebble. “Just as I can grind this bit of rock to fit a round aperture.”
Kergan Banbeck reached forward, took the pebble, tossed it high over the tumbled boulders. “That bit of rock you shall never shape to fit a round hole.”
The Weaponeer shook his head in mild deprecation. “There is always more rock.”

Jack Vance book The Dragon Masters

“And there are always more holes,” declared Kergan Banbeck.
Section 2
The Dragon Masters (1962)

Understanding

“Until quite recently poetry was taught badly—at least according to current academic standards. Poetry was used to teach grammar, elocution, and rhetoric. It was employed to convey history, both secular and sacred, often to instill patriotic sentiment and religious morality. Poetry was chanted in chorus at female academies. It was copied to teach cursive handwriting and calligraphy. It was memorized by wayward schoolboys as punishment. It was recited by children at public events and family gatherings. Being able to write verse was considered a social grace in both domestic and public life. Going to school meant becoming well versed.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

24
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), Poetry as Enchantment (2015)

Life, Children, School, Family

“When I heard those parts of the Scriptures read in the Church which extol the grace of God, and lower the free-will of man, for example, 'It is not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy,' and many similar passages,—this doctrine of grace was very disagreeable to my ungrateful mind. But afterwards I began to perceive some few distant rays of light respecting this matter. I seemed to see, but by no means clearly, that the grace of God is prior, both in nature and in time, to any good actions that men can possibly perform; and I return thanks to God, from whom proceeds every good thing, for thus freely enlightening my understanding.”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

De causa Dei contra Pelagium

Men, God, Understanding, Nature

“Among the most graceful of birds, they have the ugliest faces; in the countenance of a seagull we observe all the bitter hatred and malignance which we usually associate with the faces of money-lenders or book censors.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

Money, Books, Bird

“When their lordships asked Bacon How many bribes he had taken He had at least the grace To get very red in the face.”

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875–1956) British writer

"Bacon", in Baseless Biography (1939), p. 6.

“Andrew Jackson then is a sturdy obstacle to the Democrats' ongoing and increasingly frenzied campaign to erase from America's history all the unsavory things their party has championed for most of its existence, namely, slavery, secession, civil war, segregation, socialism, and, most recently the slaughter of infants. And so their longtime hero Andrew Jackson has been, as Sam Spade once said, chosen to take the fall alongside the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia to help erase the Democrats' consistently reprehensible behavior and policies from the history books. But there is a rub. None of the women the Democrats have so far raised as General Jackson's replacement in any way merit representation in the pantheon of patriots, nation-builders, and military leaders that grace the few denominations of our paper currency.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention http://non-intervention.com/1689/democrats-scourge-the-south-after-the-battle-flag-it%e2%80%99s-on-to-old-hickory/ (9 July 2015), by M. Scheuer. <br class="br">2010s

Women, War, Books, Way

“Some writings could sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

A statement of 1968, as quoted in "How And Why I Write: An Interview with Elie Wiesel" by Heidi Anne Walker, in Journal of Education, Vol. 162 (1980), p. 57
Variants:
Some words are deeds.
Souls on Fire : Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters (1982)
Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.
As quoted in "Nobelists, Auschwitz, and Survival" by Robert McAfee Brown, in Christianity and Crisis, Vol. 48 (7 March 1988), p. 58

“I care not, Fortune, what you me deny;
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve.
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.”

James Thomson (poet) The Castle of Indolence

Canto II, Stanza 3.
The Castle of Indolence (1748)

Children, Health, Nature

“True humility is a Christian grace and one of the fruits of the Spirit, originating in a deep consciousness of sin past and present, and leading us to discover our nothingness in the view of God, our insufficiency for any thing that is good, and prompting us, as we feel our infirmities, to strive after higher and yet higher attainments.”

James McCosh (1811–1894) British philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 329.

God, Feeling, Past

“There was a rock that since the creation of the world had been worked upon by the pure essences of Heaven and the fine savours of Earth, the vigour of sunshine and the grace of moonlight, till at last it became magically pregnant and one day split open, giving birth to a stone egg, about as big as a playing ball. Fructified by the wind it developed into a stone monkey, complete with every organ and limb.”

Arthur Waley (1889–1966) British academic

Source: Translations, Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942), Ch. 1 (p. 11)

World, Birth

“Grace is only to be found by effort, although it is here and now.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Effort

“God is merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom
Variant: God is merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.

God, Soul, Heart

“The Morning of Manifestation sighed,
the breeze of Grace breathed gently,
ripples stirred
upon the sea of Generosity.
The clouds of Abundance poured down the rain
upon the soil of preparedness;
so much rain that the earth shone with Light.”

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213–1289) Persian philosopher

Lama’at (Divine Flashes)

Light, Sea

“Any education that matters is liberal. All the saving truths, all the healing graces that distinguish a good education from a bad one or a full education from a half-empty one are contained in that word.”

Alan Simpson (1931) American politician

Alan Simpson (b. 1912), an English born educator who became a U.S. citizen in 1954, in "The Marks of an Educated Man" in Readings for Liberal Education (1962), edited by by Louis Glenn Locke, William Merriam Gibson, and George Warren Arms, p. 47.
Misattributed

Truth, Education

David Whitmer (1805–1888) Book of Mormon witness

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830)

Men, God, People, Faith

“Yes, well I noticed that in your last issues' interviews with those Eastern teachers ["From light to Light," Jan. 1995], emptiness was mentioned a lot. I find that a wrong word. Because in God realisation and being one with God the Most High, the unspeakable one, there's no sense whatsoever of ever having done anything yourself. It is all done for you. It's by grace. And so it's not being empty, it's being emptied. There's a different emphasis or a different connotation to that.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Response to the question "You write, "Enlightenment is to be emptied (not empty) of feelings and thus at one with the purest sensation of divine being." What's the distinction here between being "emptied" and being "empty" of feelings?"
Love is not a feeling ~ The Interview (1995)

God, Sense, Light, Teachers

“Pooh Bah: This professional conscientiousness is highly creditable to you, but it places us in a very awkward position.
Koko: My good sir, the awkwardness of your position is grace itself compared with that of a man engaged in the act of cutting off his own head.”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

The Mikado (1885)

“The act of canonization itself demonstrates that these are exceptions not meant for ordinary believers. Ordinary believers should follow a path that conforms to what is natural and normal. Hence theology becomes increasingly a theology of nature and moves further apart from a theology of grace. The hard question put by Jesus: “What more are you doing than others?” is obscured. In accord with society as a whole, theology enters into a search for normality, for obedience to the “laws of nature.””

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Source: The Subversion of Christianity (1984), p. 33

Law, Search, Question, Nature

“Scientists are not known for the graces of courtesy and tact when commenting on the work of others.”

Scott L. Montgomery (1951) American geologist and writer

The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science, second edition, University of Chicago press, 2017, page 83 ISBN 978-0-226-14450-4.

“Not what we wish, but what we want,
Oh, let thy grace supply!”

James Merrick (1720–1769) British poet and philologist

Hymn, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Let not that happen which I wish, but that which is right", Menander, Fragment.

“Whoever invented the word ‘grace’ must have seen the wing-folding of the plover.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“May: Back from the Argentine”, p. 34-35.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "May: Back from the Argentine," "June: The Alder Fork," "July: Great Possessions," and "July: Prairie Birthday"

“Beloved, I congratulate you, that you are at the feast of redeeming love, that you know the riches of grace in Christ Jesus; but this is only the "early meal" (introductory feast); the " grand supper "is awaiting you, at the close of the day, in the palace of the King, where the fellowship will be perfect and eternal, where the table will be beyond all the mists and fogs of sin, where death never enters to disturb the festivities, and where we shall see the Lamb face to face. O! if the feast with Jesus here is so precious, what, what must heaven be!”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 372.

Love, Death, Christ, Perfection

Wú Chéng'ēn book Monkey

Monkey, chapter 1 (trans. Arthur Waley)
Journey to the West [Xiyouji] (1592)

World, Birth

“Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market;
Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for the asking.”

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) English poet

The Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CloughArthurHugh/verse/poemsproseremains/bothie_01.html, Pt. IV (1848).

God, Knowledge

“Lord without Thee I can do nothing; with Thee I can do all. Help me by Thy grace, that I fall not; help me by Thy strength, to resist mightily the very first beginnings of evil, before it takes hold of me; help me to cast myself at once at Thy sacred feet, and lie still there, until the storm be overpast; and, if I lose sight of Thee, bring me back quickly to Thee, and grant me to love Thee better, for Thy tender mercy's sake—Amen.”

Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882) British saint

Used in "Great Souls at Prayer", Edited by Mary W. Tileson, Pubished by J. Bowden, London 1898
Prayers

Love, Lie, Evil, Help

“The window I'm proudest of is at the Granby courthouse. … When the building was inaugurated …the Bishop of Saint-Hyacinthe… told me something that still warms my heart.
"Why is the third story so beautiful? Isn't that where people wait to be taken to prison?"
"Everyone has the right to see a flower before dying, Your Grace. The flowers shouldn't be grey."”

Marcelle Ferron (1924–2001) Canadian artist

"You speak like the Gospels."
Original in French: La verrière dont je suis la plus fière se trouve au palais de justice de Granby. … À l'inauguration de l'édifice... l'évêque de Saint-Hyacinthe... m'a fait un commentaire qui me rechauffe toujours le coeur.
Pourquoi le troisième étage est-il si beau? N'est-ce pas là ou se trouvent les gens qui attendent leur transfert en prison?
Monseigneur, tout homme a le droit de voir une fleur avant de mourir. Il ne faut pas que les fleurs soient grises.
Vous parlez comme les Évangiles.
L'esquisse d'une mémoire, 1996

People, Beauty, Flowers, Waiting

“Susan Brooks was one of those girls who never say anything unless called upon, the ones the teachers always have to ask to speak up, please. A very studious, very serious girl. A rather pretty but not terribly bright girl -- the kind who isn't allowed to give up and take the general or the commercial courses, because she had a terribly bright older brother or older sister, and the teachers expect comparable things from her. In fine, one of those girls who are holding the dirty end of the stick with as much good grace and manners as they can muster. Usually they marry truck drivers and move to the West Coast, where they have kitchen nooks with Formica counters -- and they write letters to the Folks Back East as seldom as they can get away with. They make quiet, successful lives for themselves and grow prettier as the shadow of the bright older brother or sister falls away from them.”

Stephen King book Rage

Rage (1977)

Girl, Sister, Teachers, Success

“Grace will ever speak for itself and be fruitful in well-doing; the sanctified cross is a fruitful tree.”

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 10.

Tree

“We believe that the time has come for doing more fully what He has commanded us; and by His grace we intend to do it. Not to try, for we see no Scriptural authority for trying. Try is a word constantly in the mouth of unbelievers,... far too often taken up by believers. In our experience, ‘to try’ has usually meant ‘to fail’. (The Lord’s) command is not ‘Do your best,’ but ‘DO IT’.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Six: Assault on the Nine. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1988, 47).

Time

Quotes about grace page 5

Quotes about grace
page 5