Great Throughts Treasury

"I had the opportunity to deliver babies... In each of these numinous moments, I knew that life had meaning; each experience was accompanied by an upwelling of gratitude and humility. These moments, which can be called an experience of the self, or archetype of meaning, are akin to the act of finally seeing the Holy Grail after a long quest... It is through these moments of grace and gratitude that we acquire a sense of meaning and a desire to live a meaningful life. The personal challenge is now." - Jean Shinoda Bolen

"Nothing humbles and breaks the heart of a sinner like mercy and love. Souls that converse much with sin and wrath, may be much terrified; but souls that converse much with grace and mercy, will be much; humbled." - Thomas Brooks

"It is boorish to give with a bad grace. If the act of giving entails an effort, what matters the additional cost of a smile?" - Jean de La Bruyère

"Some people habitually wear sadness, like a garment, and think it a becoming grace. God loves a cheerful worshipper." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin

"Accomplishments have taken virtue’s place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace." - William Cowper

"Many are the natures of men, various their manners of living, yet a straight path is always the right one; and lessons deeply taught lead man to paths of righteousness; reverence, I say, is wisdom and by its grace transfigures - so that we seek virtue with a right judgment. From all of this springs honor bringing ageless glory into Man’s life. Oh, a mighty quest is the hunting out of virtue." - Euripedes NULL

"Simplicity is that grace which frees the soul from all unnecessary reflections upon itself." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

"Simplicity is a captivating grace in woman, as rare as it is attractive." - J. de Finod

"We are here for communion with God who is Love, the One in whose image and likeness each one of us is made. We find this communion by loving as God loves us... The miracle of all miracles is the ability to transform through love the smallest, seemingly insignificant detail of the routine drudgery of everyday existence into paradise; the ability to become ourselves, at each moment, a fresh paradise to those around us, thereby becoming “gods by grace” for those who are “gods” to us. Each person accepts or rejects communion with God in his or her own unique manner... The act of communion comes always as grace. For those who know it, it is not life’s meaning, purpose or goal. It is life itself: God with us making us what God is." - Thomas Hopko

"Deliverance is out of time into eternity, and is achieved by obedience and docility to the eternal Nature of Things. We have been given free will, in order that we may will our self-will out of existence and so come to live continuously in a “state of grace.” All our actions must be directed, in the last analysis, to making ourselves passive in relation to the activity and the being of divine Reality. We are, as it were, aeolian harps, endowed with the power either to expose themselves to the wind of the Spirit or to shut themselves away from it." - Aldous Leonard Huxley

"The present moment is the only aperture through which the soul can pass out of time into eternity, through which grace can pass out of eternity into the soul, and through which charity can pass from one soul in time to another soul in time." - Aldous Leonard Huxley

"Charity is never lost: it may meet with ingratitude, or be of no service to those on whom it was bestowed, yet it ever does a work of beauty and grace upon the heart of the giver." - Thomas Middleton

"Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charm at first sight, and lend on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there by anything in our character worthy of imitation." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good." - Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL

"Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart of life, and is prophetic of eternal good." - Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL

"Old men grasp more at life than babies, and leave it with much worse grace than young people. It is because all their labours have been for this life, they perceive at last their trouble lost." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Be not ashamed to confess that you have been in the wrong. It is but owning what you need not be ashamed of - that you now have more sense than you had before, to see your error; more humility to acknowledge it, more grace to correct it." - Jeremiah Seed

"We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers." -

"We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to fingers." -

"Give us grace and strength to forbear and to preserve. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends and soften to us our enemies. Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another." - Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

"Love gives beauty to everything it touches. Not greed and utility; they produce offices, but not dwelling houses. To be able to love material things, to clothe them with tender grace, and yet not be attached to them, this is a great service." -

"The best people need afflictions for trial of their virtue. How can we exercise the grace of contentment, if all things succeed well; or that of forgiveness, if we have no enemies?" - John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

"Different minds incline to different objects; one pursues the vast alone, the wonderful, the wild; another sighs for harmony and grace, and gentlest beauty." - Mark Akenside

"Soldiers that carry their lives in their hands, should carry the grace of God in their hearts." - Richard Baxter

"Nothing is thought rare which is not new, and followed; yet we know that what was worn some twenty years ago comes into grace again." - Beaumont and Fletcher, Francis Beaumont (c.1585-1614) and John Fletcher

"The grandest operations, both in nature and in grace, are the most silent and imperceptible. The shallow brook babbles in its passage, and is heard by every one; but the coming on of the seasons is silent and unseen. The storm rages and alarms, but its fury is soon exhausted, and its effects are partial and soon remedied; but the dew, though gentle and unheard, is immense in quantity, and the very life of large portions of the earth. And these are pictures of the operations of the grace in the church and in the soul." - Richard Cecil

"Conversation by the Holy Spirit is a spiritual illumination of the soul. God’s grace lights up the dark heart." - Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

"Grace is the outcome of inward harmony." - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

"Accustom yourself gradually to carry prayer into all your daily occupations. Speak, move, work, in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be. Do everything with excitement, by the spirit of grace." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

"As knowledge advances, science ceases to scoff at religion; and religion ceases to frown on science. The hour of mockery by the one, and of reproof by the other, is passing away. Henceforth, they will dwell together in unity and good-will. They will mutually illustrate the wisdom, power, and grace of God. Science will adorn and enrich religion; and religion will ennoble and sanctify science." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"To be human is to suffer loss. To lose it to grieve. To grieve is to heal. Grace and power to you in leaning in to and moving through that painful process." - Thomas Mozley

"This is Daddy's little secret for today: Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue." - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

"When the righteous man searches for the nature of things, he makes his own admirable discovery: that everything is God's grace." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

"Let a man begin in earnest with “ ought,” and he will end, by God’s grace, if he persevere, with “I will.” Let him force himself to abound in all small offices of kindliness, attention, affectionateness, and all these for God’s sake. By and by he will feel them become the habit of the soul." -

"To experience religion is to experience the truth of the great doctrines of divine grace." - Ichabod Smith Spencer

"Property exists by grace of the law. It is not a fact, but a legal fiction." - Max Stirner, born Johann Kaspar Schmidt

"To be present with the sensations in our body is not an act of will. It is a kind of equanimity or grace. In such movements we feel our activity belonging to life." - Denise Taylor

"Faith is a certain image of eternity. All things are present to it - things past, and things to come; it converses with angels, and antedates the hymns of glory. Every man that hath this grace is as certain there are glories for him, if he perseveres in duty, as if he had heard and sung thanksgiving song for the blessed sentence of doomsday." - Jeremy Taylor

"Fair-handed spring unbosoms every grace." -

"What is happiness other than the grace of being permitted to unfold to their fullest bloom all the spiritual powers planted within us." - Franz Werfel, fully Franz Viktor Werfel

"“Why are we here?” is surely the most important question human beings must face, whatever their origin, whatever their belief. Our obligation is to confer meaning to life and, in doing so, overcome temptations of passivity and indifference. A person who chooses indifference is dead without knowing it. In his or her case, life has no meaning, nor does death. And yet for those who believe in sharing experiences, life does have meaning in spite of the meaningless death some of us may have witnessed. Those who share teach us that one must make every minute rich and enriching, not for oneself but for someone else, thereby creating living links between the individuals and groups. Ultimately, life is a gift and meaning is its reward. So is the art and ability of asking questions. The meaning of life is to be found in the question that becomes encounter. Then every moment becomes a moment of grace." -

"In composing, think much more of your matter than your manner. Spirit, grace, and dignity of manner are of great importance, both to the speaker and writer; but of infinitely more importance are the weight and worth of matter." - William Wirt

"What’s true beauty but fair virtue’s face, virtue made visible in outward grace?" - Edward Young

"Even on the path to God, All is God. You are freed from your own desires only when God frees you. This is not effected by your own exertion, but by the grace of God... Then you entirely recognize that you do not have the right to say “I” or “mine.” At this stage you behold your helplessness; desires fall away from you and you become free and calm. You desire what God desires; your own desires are gone, you are emancipated from your wants, and I have gained peace and joy in both worlds. First, action is necessary, then knowledge, in order that you may know that you know nothing and are no one. This is not easy to know. It is a thing that cannot be rightly learned by instruction, nor sewed on with needle nor tied on with thread. It is the gift of God." -

"The humble soul is a temple of God, a seat of wisdom, a throne of the word, a house of the consoler, a room of the bridegroom, the receiver of the covenant, a golden throne of grace, a tabernacle of holiness, a place of holy peace, a paradise of pleasure, a closed garden, a sealed fountain, a heavenly dwelling place." - Johann Arndt

"True liberation comes through grace and not through free will." - Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev

"Life goes at such a terrific pace--a few years full of youth and grace and then you fall flat on your face before world history." - Wolf Biermann, fully Karl Wolf Biermann

"All is not right with the world, but with the grace of God we can in a measure recreate the world into something nobler and more beautiful." - John Elof Boodin

"If the Day of Judgment came tomorrow, and God asked us what we had made of His revelation, of His grace and our freedom… we would be hard put to it to explain the advantages of a machine civilization whose highest efficiency is used for murder and slavery." - R. L. Bruckberger, fully Raymond Léopold Bruckberger

"Not in any prescribed form of prayer, or studied liturgie, but in such manner as the Spirit of grace and prayer teacheth all the people of God." - John Cotton