These are some of the quotes I’ve compiled throughout the years. When speaking about quotes, Marlene Dietrich once said: “I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.” I hope you enjoy them.
The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.
-Elisabeth Elliot
The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, ‘O God, forgive me,’ or ‘Help me.’
-Billy Graham
Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any other fragile and precious thing.
-Randolph Bourne
Simplicity towards God consists in seeking him only in all our actions.
-St. Jane Frances de Chantal
If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.
-Mary Pickford
One of the first things Christ says in the Gospel is this: “Happy the simple-hearted!” Yes, happy those who head towards simplicity, simplicity of heart and simplicity of life.
-Brother Roger of Taizé
Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.
-Albert Schweitzer
Knowing that we are fulfilling God’s purpose is the only thing that really gives rest to the restless human heart.
-Charles Colson
Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.
-Simone Weil
If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
-Mother Teresa
He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he who loses his courage loses all.
-Miguel de Cervant
We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt.
-Brennan Manning, “The Ragamuffin Gospel”
Faith in a prayer-hearing God will make a prayer-loving Christian.
-Andrew Murray
It’s important the people should know what you stand for. It’s equally important that they know what you won’t stand for.
-Mary H. Waldr
Grace is getting something that you don’t deserve; and mercy is not getting something that you do deserve.
-Francis Bacon
Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
-Corrie ten Boom
Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.
-Les Brown
One encounter with Jesus Christ is enough to change you, instantly, forever.
-Luis Palau
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
-Helen Keller
No one can know what secret inner ripening can come from suffering and sorrow. All we know is that every individual’s life is priceless – that each is dear to God.
-Christoph Probst
Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work.
-Oswald Chambers
The only way to pass any test is to take the test.
-Anonymous
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint; therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
-Reinhold Niebuhr
I do not understand the mystery of grace–only that it meets us where we are, but does not leave us where it found us.
-Anne LaMot
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
-William Shakespeare
God is the important fact, and Christ the moving force…I asked for strength and forgiveness and the air began to clear, and I could act again, but not in my own strength.
-Jane Tyson Clement
Persons of true godly character are neither optimists nor pessimists, but realists who have confidence in God.
-Warren W. Wiersbe
Either we are adrift in chaos or we are individuals, created, loved, upheld and placed purposefully, exactly where we are. Can you believe that? Can you trust God for that?
-Elisabeth Elliot
Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of.
-Anonymous
Live in such a way that those who know you but don’t know God will come to know God because they know you.
-Unknown
I discovered that sorrow was not to be feared but rather endured with hope and expectancy that God would use it to bless my life.
-Jill Briscoe
Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.
-Albert Einstein
We must not only give what we have; we must also give what we are.
-Cardinal Mercia
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
-Matthew 18:20
I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.
-Booker T. Washington
Let the Bible fill the memory, rule the heart and guide the feet.
-Henrietta Mears
I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
-John 6:35
Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?
-Corrie Ten Boom
It is not hard for the Lord to turn night into day. He that sends the clouds can as easily clear the skies. Let us be of good cheer.
-Charles Spurgeon
The days are too short even for love; how can there be enough time for quarreling?
-Margaret Gatty
You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price. Never, never neglect it.
-Sir Thomas Buxton
Our work brings people face to face with love. To us what matters is an individual. To get to love the person must come in close contact with him.
-Mother Teresa
Tell me, I’ll forget. Show me, I may remember. But involve me, and I’ll understand.
-Chinese Proverb
If you are truly humble, you will always be ready to seek (and accept!) help from others.
-J.C. Blumhardt
Surrender yourself to God. Wish for nothing but one thing: that his will be done, that his kingdom come, and that his nature be revealed. Then all will be well.
-Eberhard Arnold
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.
-George MacDonald
Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, if you are not willing to move your feet.
-Anonymous
My mind is a garden. My thoughts are the seeds. My harvest will be either flower or weeds.
-Mel Weldon
I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
-William Sloane Coffin
People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you’ll know exactly what to do.
-Michelle Ventor
Learn to write your hurts in sand.
Learn to carve your blessings in stone!
There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.
-French Proverb
There is no amount of darkness that can extinguish the inner light. The important thing is not to spend our lives trying to control the environment around us. The task is to control the environment within us.
-Joan Chittester
Accept as good whatever happens to you or affects you, knowing that nothing happens without God.
-The Didache
A life of faith…enables us to see God in everything and it holds the mind in a state of readiness for whatever may be His will.
-Francois Fenelon
Weave the unfailing fabric of God’s Word through your heart and mind. It will hold strong, even if the rest of life unravels.
-Gigi Graham Tchvidjian
Prayer is an end to isolation. It is living our daily life with someone; with Him who alone can deliver us from solitude.
-Georges Lefevre
Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.
-Albert Schweitzer
Do not turn away from those who are in need, but share all things in common with your brother. Your heart shall not cling to the high and mighty, but turn to the good and humble folk.
-The Didache
Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
-Saint Francis
Blessed is the man who finds out which way God is moving and then gets going in the same direction.
-Unknown
A humble person is more likely to be self confident…a person with real humility knows how much they are loved.
-Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.
-Mother Teresa
Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level.
-Max L. Forman
Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.
-Lou Brock
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.
-Mother Teresa, The Simple Path
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.
-Elizabeth Foley
First keep the peace within yourself, then you can bring peace to others.
-Thomas à Kempis
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
-Charles Caleb Colton
I choose goodness…I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I will accuse. I choose goodness.
-Max Lucado
If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.
-Arthur Koestler
By a Carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade.
-Desiderius Erasmus
Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries.
-Corita Kent
Do what good you can, and do it solely for God’s glory, as free from it yourself as though you did not exist. Ask nothing whatever in return. Done in this way, your works are spiritual and godly.
-Meister Eckhart
One filled with joy preaches without preaching.
-Mother Teresa
The Christian faith is meant to be lived moment by moment. It isn’t some broad, general outline–it’s a long walk with a real Person. Details count: passing thoughts, small sacrifices, a few encouraging words, little acts of kindness, brief victories over nagging sins.
-Joni Eareckson Tada
We have a choice: to plow new ground or let the weeds grow.
-Jonathan Westover
The cheerful giver does not count the cost of what he gives. His heart is set on pleasing and sharing Him to whom the gift is given.
-Julian of Norwich
The true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.
-Ann Landers
Sin is like quicksand: Your own efforts only make you sink deeper. Only an outside hand can pull you out.
-Unknown
Christ is a jewel of more worth than a thousand worlds, as all know who have him. Get him, and get all; miss him and miss all.
-Thomas Brooks
Do your utmost to guard your heart, for out of it comes life.
-Walter Hilton
It is more serious to lose hope than to sin.
-John of Carpathos
Make sure the thing you’re living for is worth dying for.
-Charles Mayes
One filled with joy preaches without preaching.
-Mother Teresa
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
-Emily Dickinson
You cannot see faith, but you can see the footprints of the faithful. We must leave behind “faithful footprints” for others to follow.
-Dr. Dennis Anderson
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures.
-Horace Greeley
Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent.
-Leonard Ravenhill
Don’t worry that children never listen to you. Worry that they are always watching you.
-Robert Fulghum
The best cure for loneliness is developing an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
-Unknown
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
-Og Mandino
Wisdom is, and starts with, the humility to accept the fact that you don’t have all the right answers, and the courage to learn to ask the right questions.
-Unknown
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.
-Epicurus
The best gifts to give:
To your friend, loyalty;
To your enemy, forgiveness;
To your boss, service;
To a child, a good example;
To your parents, gratitude and devotion;
To your mate, love and faithfulness;
To all men and women, charity.
-Oren Arnold
God takes us into deep waters, not to drown us but to cleanse us.
-Unknown
The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
-William Blake
What we need is a cup of understanding, a barrel of love, and an ocean of patience.
-St. Francis de Sales
We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.
-Charles Swindoll
Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave ’em all over everything you do.
-Elvis Presley
The more you have, the more you’re occupied; the less you have, the more free you are.
-Mother Teresa
Hope is like a road in the country; there wasn’t ever a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
-Lin Yutang
When you see God’s hands in everything, it is easy to leave everything in God’s hands.
-Unknown
For certain things are not refused us, but their granting is delayed to a fitting time.
-St. Augustine
It is not how much you do, but how much Love you put into the doing that matters.
-Mother Teresa
The value of consistent prayer is not that He will hear us, but that we will hear Him.
-William McGill
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.
-Unknown
It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us…Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.
-Mother Teresa
I’ve learned that you can’t give what you’ve never received. There’s no aquifer of love, there’s no distillery of faith within me, so I have to receive it.
-Max Lucado
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
-Thomas Jefferson
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
-Winston Churchill
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
-Dorothy Nevill
We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.
-William Law
Love is not blind, it sees more not less;
But because it sees more it chooses to see less.
-Unknown
I don’t follow Jesus because I think Christianity is the best religion. I follow Jesus because he leads me into ultimate reality.
-Rob Bell
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
-Storm Jameson
To maintain our soul in a state of peace, it suffices to perform all our actions in God’s presence.
-St. Francis de Sales
Prayer is the most powerful means of overcoming any kind of discouragement. It connects you with an omnipotent, omniscient Father who loves you unconditionally, who sees where you are and is going to help you in it.
Let the crucifix be not only in my eyes and on my breast, but in my heart.
-St. Bernadette
Friendship is a promise of future loyalty, loyalty no matter what comes. Promises are the bricks of life and trust is the mortar.< /FONT>
-Stephen Carter, “The Emperor of Ocean Park” (submitted by rosaliekg)
The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.
-Hadia Bejar
When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
-Harriet Beecher Stowe
Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
-Sydney J. Harris
‘Twas her thinking of others that made you think of her.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
God is so big He can cover the whole world with his Love and so small He can curl up inside your heart.
-June Masters Bacher
Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it’s what you are expected to give — which is everything.
Choices are the hinges of destiny.
-Edwin Markham
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
-Dr. Seuss
If you get busy serving God, you’re too busy to sin.
-Chuck Baker
When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself.
-Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief
By humble and faithful prayer, the soul acquires, with time and perseverance, every virtue.
-St. Catherine of Siena
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
-Carl Jung
No pressure, no diamonds.
-Mary Case
What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.
-Mother Teresa
Age has given me the gift of me, it just gave me what I was always longing for, which was to get to be the woman I’ve already dreamt of being.
-Anne Lamott
Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living, the other helps you make a life.
-Sandra Carey
There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.
-Zora Neale Hurston
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you’ll help them to become what they are capable of becoming.
-Goethe
I am not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be.
-Joyce Meyers
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable are the kind who do nothing.
-William Feather
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-Susan Ertz
If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it’s not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
-Augustine of Hippo
The fruit of Silence is prayer.
The fruit of Prayer is faith.
The fruit of Faith is love.
The fruit of Love is service.
The fruit of Service is peace.
-Mother Teresa
Most people want to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.
-Robert Orben
A real friend never gets in your way–unless you happen to be on the way down.
-Dr. Wayne Dyer
Turn yourself around like a piece of clay and say to the Lord: I am clay, and you Lord, the potter. Make of me what you will.
-St. John of Avila
Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.
-George Washington
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.
-George Bernard Shaw
We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
-Mother Teresa of Calcutta
We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time.
-Thomas Merton
God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will, a will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.
-Elisabeth Elliot
If you make it plain you like people, it’s hard for them to resist liking you back.
-Lois McMaster Bujold
Let everyone understand that the real love of God does not consist in tear-shedding…but in serving God by serving those around us, in justice, fortitude of soul, and humility.
-St. Teresa of Avila
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
-Kahlil Gibran
Experience has taught me that the Shepherd is far more willing to show his sheep the path than the sheep are to follow. He is endlessly merciful, patient, tender, and loving.
-Elisabeth Elliot
Keep praying, but be thankful that God’s answers are wiser than your prayers!
-William Culbertson
We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
-Mother Teresa
I discovered that sorrow was not to be feared but rather endured with hope and expectancy that God would use it to bless my life.
-Jill Briscoe
In darkness there is no choice. It is light that enables us to see the differences between things; and it is Christ who gives us light.
-Mrs. C.T. Whitemell
The days are too short even for love; how can there be enough time for quarreling?
-Margaret Gatty
If God is your love and your purpose, the chief aim of your heart, it is all you need in this life…Such a blind shot with the sharp dart of longing will never miss its mark, which is God.
-The Cloud of Unknowing
There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
-Anais Nin
May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.
-Mother Teresa
Forever at the door
I gave my heart and soul. My fortune, too.
I’ve no flock anymore,
no other work in view.
My occupation: love. It’s all I do.
-John of the Cross
Learn to pause … or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.
-Doug King
Come out of the circle of time, and into the circle of love.
-Rumi
Self-discipline is when your conscience tells you to do something and you don’t talk back.
-W.K. Hope
If we want a love message to be heard, it has to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
-Mother Teresa
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.
-Emily Dickinson
Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.
-Henri Nouwen
Let me tell you this: Faith comes and goes. But if it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will.
-Flannery O’Connor
A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.
-Ruth Bell Graham
God never promises to remove us from our struggles. He does promise, however, to change the way we look at them.
-Max Lucado
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.
-Anonymous
One of the most important responsibilities in the Christian life is to care about others, smile at them, and be a friend to the friendless.
-James Dobson
There are two freedoms: the false where a man is free to do what he likes; and the true where a man is free to do what he ought.
-Charles Kingsley
Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Faith is not a thing which one “loses,” we merely cease to shape our lives by it.
-Georges Bernanos
It is not what WE do for God, but what HE does through us.
-Judy Sexton
He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.
-George Herbert
Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
-William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
Worrying about something that may never happen is like paying interest on money you may never borrow.
-Unknown
A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.
-Arnold Glasgow
Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but moments.
-Rose Kennedy
Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.
-St. Francis de Sales
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
-Andy Warhol
Prayer is an end to isolation. It is living our daily life with someone; with Him who alone can deliver us from solitude.
-Georges Lefevre
How many times do we miss God’s blessings because they are not packaged as we expected?
-Unknown
Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty. It merely moves from their faces to their hearts.
-Martin Buxbaum
The greatest privilege God gives to you is the freedom to approach Him at any time.
-Wesley L. Duewel
The door of opportunity won’t open unless you do some pushing.
-Anonymous
My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just to enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate.
-Thornton Wilder
Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?
–Mary Manin Morrissey
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
-Bruce Crampton
Forgiveness creates an obligation for which there are no exceptions allowed.
-Giovanni Papini, “The Life of Christ”
The world sets the agenda for the professional man; God sets the agenda of the spiritual man.
-John Piper
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love is an act of endless forgiveness.
-Jean Vanier
Jesus Christ is not valued at all until He is valued above all.
-St. Augustine
First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.
-Thomas a Kempis
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.
-Mother Teresa
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
-Dale Carnegie
Fear not tomorrow, for God is already there.
-Unknown
In pursuit of happiness, the difficulty lies in knowing when you have caught up.
-R.H. Grenville
A broken heart is what makes life so wonderful–five years later.
-Phyllis Battelle
There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.
~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, time seems speeded up. What was is not and never again will be; what is is change.
-Edwin Way Teale
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. And when you have finished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
-Victor Hugo
The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduced yourself to had life not done it for you.
-Kendall Hailey
A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word darkness on the walls of his cell.
-C.S. Lewis
Look outward and be distressed,
Look inward and be depressed,
Look upward and be at rest.
-Corrie Ten Boom
Patience is also a form of action.
-Auguste Rodin
There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.
Angels may not dress the part,
With robes and wings that soar,
Often angels come as friends
Knocking at your door.
-Unknown
Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Go the extra mile. It’s never crowded.
-Executive Speechwriter Newsletter
My big prayer is that I want to make sure that I’m walking in His will, and that He’ll speak to me.
-Rebecca St. James
Man can live for about forty days without food, and about three days without water, about eight minutes without air … but only for one second without hope.
-Hal Lindsey
Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.
-Unknown
…O God of life,
Be at my breast, be at my back,
You to me as a star, you to me as a guide,
From my life’s beginning to my life’s closing.
-Celtic Prayer
You should not suffer the past. You should be able to wear it like a loose garment, take it off and let it drop.
–Eva Jessye
–Ann Landers