c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
It takes grace to endure hardtimes
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The conscious attempt to be a good person without Christ is as legalistic as an attempt to make it into Heaven through empty religiosity.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
Grace does not make sense. It's not supposed to make sense. Grace cannot be calculated or formulated, earned or even rewarded for a job well done. Grace is a gift, not a salary.
— Michelle DeRusha, Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith
The burden of sin leads you to the need for a Savior.
— John Paul Warren
You have the grace for happy life.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Truly I am God's Beauty, His Trophy, His Outstretched Arms...I am here for His Glory and Pleasure.
— Jaachynma N.E. Agu, Risk It, Be Different
And how long will your fingers be so tangled in the law that you can't live out of My grace?
— Angie Smith
Grace runs downhill and now all his time is being redeemed.
— Geoffrey Wood
Don’t try to live to make an impression on anyone. Accept God’s provision for your life. Don’t live or act beyond the measure of the Grace of Christ upon your life.
— Benjamin Suulola
But I did not bring the Wild Boy to England simply so he could learn from us. I also brought him here so we could learn from him; so we can remember what it means to be young- to be innocent. You are still young now, but there will come a time when you will be grown-up, and it is easy, so easy, to forget how precious, how dear, life is. Then you forget to smile, to laugh, to cry, to dream. I hope knowing Peter will help you to hold on fiercely to your own innocence, to live joyfully, even in the midst of difficult times.
— Christopher Daniel Mechling, Peter: The Untold True Story
The grace of silence-enduring hard times.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Grace and chocolate cake can cover a world of awkwardness.
— Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised by Motherhood: Everything I Never Expected about Being a Mom
All divine power is within you to accomplish great things.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Evil can never hide itself for too long, Shane. Its ego is too big not to be heard or seen for so long
— Christine Zolendz, Scars and Songs
The grace for each day is sufficient to accomplish a daily task.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
What is God's part and what is man's part? God's part is grace. Man's part is faith.
— Dr. Lewis W Gregory
In league with being graced by greatness, prepare to be greeted, by all that is beneath you.
— Justin K. McFarlane Beau
All that we have and don't have is a grace. Even the awareness of grace is a grace in which we should give thanks."﻿
— Mac MacKenzie
I am thankful to God for the grace of being alive.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The deepness and consistency of your repenting will have a direct impact on the liveliness of your faith and the brightness of your confidence. This is not because you repent so well, but because in repenting you know the darkness and trouble of your own sin, and the great work of grace in Jesus that overcomes it all.
— Joe Thorn, Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself
Sin is the transgression of the law, the death of Christ is the satisfaction of the law, justification is the verdict of the law, and sanctification is the believer's fulfillment of the law.
— Ernest F. Kevan, Grace of Law: A Study in Puritan Theology
Within a moment of silence, all is known that needs to be known. Within a moment of breath, all of life surrounds you...from the stars, the sun, the trees and all of humanity. Within a moment of a smile, love embraces the universe and beyond. It only takes a moment of being open to the wisdom, the beauty and the Grace. ~jh
— Jennifer Hillman
Grace means God gives. Faith means I receive.
— Dr. Lewis W Gregory
GRACE means God does the work. FAITH means I let Him.
— Dr. Lewis W Gregory
Faith is the receiver of grace
—  unbelief is the rejector.
A marriage filled with unconditional love experiences the depth of grace and mercy.
— Elizabeth George, Moments of Grace for a Woman's Heart
...the power of grace can work great things in the human person, greater than we might have dared to hope...(pg.52 in The Examen Prayer).
— Fr. Timothy Gallagher OMV
The grace,faith,love and power of God will uplift you to greater heights.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Judge tenderly, if you must. There is usually a side you have not heard, a story you know nothing about, and a battle waged that you are not having to fight.
— Traci Lea LaRussa
The best practice is to be around people who absolutely disagree. Grace in conflict is a study in love.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Even under false accusation those who are in the right can afford to be calm and considerate. God is acquainted with all that is misunderstood and misinterpreted by men, and we can safely leave our case in His hands. He will as surely vindicate the cause of those who put their trust in Him as He searched out the guilt of Achan. Those who are actuated by the spirit of Christ will possess that charity which suffers long and is kind.
— Ellen G. White, Patriarchs And Prophets
Before there could be any permanent reformation the people must be led to feel their utter inability in themselves to render obedience to God.
— Ellen G. White, Patriarchs And Prophets
When you are convinced that what you offer is yours, whether it be mediocre or of standard quality, your originality will make people love you in a way you did not expect.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
No matter how much individuals do through their own efforts, they cannot actively purify themselves enough to be disposed in the least degree for the divine union of the perfection of love. God must take over and purge them in that fire that is dark for them, as we will explain.
— San Juan de la Cruz, Dark Night of the Soul
Let no one take the limited, narrow position that any of the works of man can help in the least possible way to liquidate the debt of his transgression. This is a fatal deception. If you would understand it, you must cease haggling over your pet ideas, and with humble hears survey the atonement.  This matter is so dimly comprehended that thousands upon thousands claiming to be sons of God are children of the wicked one, because they will depend on their own works. God always demanded good works, the law demands it, but because man placed himself in sin where his good works were valueless, Jesus' righteousness alone can avail. Christ is able to save to the uttermost because He ever liveth to make intercession for us.  All man can possibly do toward his own salvation is to accept the invitation, "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.
— Ellen G. White, Notebook leaflets
Comport yourself with grace under pressure.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Have you forgotten what it feels like to be alive? The grace of life shining on you
—  each breath vitalizing you with possibility? Remember!
All our good deeds cannot save us.We are saved by grace and faith in Jesus Christ.
— Lailah GiftyAkita
Wisdom is an ornament of grace to the soul.
— Elizabeth George, Walking with the Women of the Bible: A Devotional Journey Through God's Word
Life is full of unexpected. The grace of God is available to everyone to stand the test of time.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
There are gentler and more graceful ways to interface with natural conflict.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Grace allows for questions ... and is the answer!" EL
— Evinda Lepins, A Cup of Grace for the Day: Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power
I speak the unseen into seeing and I can feel it, this steady breathing in the rhythm of grace--'give thanks (in), give thanks (out)'.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
We 'have' all received on grace after another, but we only recognize the glory of God in this moment 'when we wake to the one grace after another'.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person.
— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
Make sure you keep an inner state of flexibility, and are not tightly bound to your visions.
— Kelly    Martin, When Everyone Shines But You - Saying Goodbye To I'm Not Good Enough
If we ask God for a calm, thankful heart that sees all the blessings His grace imparts, He can teach us many lessons in illness that can never be learned in health.
— David Jeremiah, What In the World Is Going On?: 10 Prophetic Clues You Cannot Afford to Ignore
Your life has a natural motion. Surrendering reveals how flowing this life could be.
— Kelly    Martin, When Everyone Shines But You - Saying Goodbye To I'm Not Good Enough
We stitch together quilts of meaning to keep us warm and safe, with whatever patches of beauty and utility we have on hand.
— Anne Lamott
Not one thing we've done changes that we are his. That he created us and loves us with a love more fierce and loyal than any we will ever know. He isn't looking for perfection. He's looking for humble hearts that know we are nothing without his lavish grace.
— Melanie Shankle, The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life
Don’t ever leave us again. Vaughn has been horrible. Like pre-Grace horrible.
— Sarra Manning, It Felt Like a Kiss
Pray for God’s grace to nurture on the inside what He calls us to live out on the outside.
— Elizabeth George, A Woman's High Calling
If God spares us as a father does his son, let us imitate God. It is natural for children to imitate their parents. Let us imitate God in this one thing: As God spares us, and passes by many failures, so let us be sparing in our censures of others; let us look upon the weaknesses and indiscretions of our brethren with...a more tender, compassionate eye. How much God bears with us!
— Thomas Watson
To the degree that God gives us the grace to see Him, our lives and our ministries will become fruitful and effective.
— Bill Mills, Adequate: How God Empowers Ordinary People to Serve
When we appropriate God's great enablers-His grace and His peace-we can achieve gentleness and calmness even during hard times.
— Kay Arthur, Walking with God in the Quiet Places: Devotions for Women
Grace is waiting for you. It’s always there. It’s always waiting. It doesn’t pokes holes into our lives. We are the ones who poke the holes and let the light in, let the magic in. But there’s no rush. There are no deadlines. There’s comfort in staying in our cocoons. Only when we lose that comfort and feel overwhelmed do we feel forced to reach up for something greater. Or, we simply feel the calling for more. Either way, we start living on God’s timetable and awaken to the beautiful mystery, and the things we had clinged to the most fade into pale substitutes.
— Elizabeth Fox Brewer, The Hunger for Home: The Map of My Journey, with Space for Yours
Grace knocks us flat, preventing any form of self-congratulation. All the good we achieve is to be attributed to God rather than to ourselves. What makes our lives good is not anything we are ourselves but the presence within us of what we are not, a divine presence never ours by right because never ours by nature. All the glory for the good we exhibit in our lives should therefore be reserved for God.
— Kathryn Tanner, Christ the Key
As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying and imperturbed pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul by His Divine grace. And though in sin or in human love, away from God it seeks to hide itself, Divine grace follows after, unwearyingly follows ever after, till the soul feels its pressure forcing it to turn to Him alone in that never ending pursuit.
— J.R.R. Tolkien
A grace is a thing you get from God, you use it to make a better world, or not use it, you have to choose.
— Dean Koontz, Brother Odd
Hope Love Grace Luckthere is space between them because you can't hanle them if all four comes at once...enjoy hope ,,,,definitely love will come to you with a small gap,and so grace and luck too.
— pavankumar nagaraj
And God's epic grace shows us how to rise above our pain and circumstances with enduring hope and faith in him.
— Kurt W. Bubna, Epic Grace: Chronicles of a Recovering Idiot
And she's like, you know, the 'Grace' in U2's song, the one that 'carries the world on her hips'.” - Diana Rigsby, M.D. Ph.D.
— L.A. Kragie, Vampire Chimeras
Live with GRACE & Die with PRIDE.
— Rishi Bakshi
If we want to give grace to our children, then first we must be willing to receive it ourselves from God.
— Gloria Furman, Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms
There are graceful ways of accessing your purpose and success, with time, invitation, gentleness, cooperation and surrender.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Through the grace shown to us in the gospel, there is something distinctly Christlike about a mother's love for her child.
— Gloria Furman, Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms
I think timing is better left up to God to decide then religious leaders. I once met a man that brought his wife flowers in the hospital. They held hands, kissed and were as affectionate as any cute couple could be. They were both in their eighties. I asked them how long they were married. I expected them to tell me fifty years or longer. To my surprise, they said only five years. He then began to explain to me that he was married thirty years to someone that didn’t love him, and then he remarried a second time only to have his second wife die of cancer, two years later. I looked at my patient (his wife) sitting in the wheelchair next to him smiling. She added that she had been widowed two times. Both of her marriages lasted fifteen years. I was curious, so I asked them why they would even bother pursuing love again at their age. He looked at me with astonishment and said, “Do you really think that you stop looking for a soulmate at our age? Do you honestly believe that God would stop caring about how much I needed it still, just because I am nearing the end of my life? No, he left the best for last. I have lived through hell, but if I only get five years of happiness with this woman then it was worth the years of struggle I have been through.
— Shannon L. Alder
Grace will meet you in the valley, and her song will carry you home on the wind to another sky filled with ethereal beauty unfolding and love everlasting.
— Shannon L. Alder
Wars have a way reinventing people. And making too many things disappear.-Sonia
— Neal Shusterman, UnSouled
When you call someone a sinner, make sure you have no sin in you, and if you say you are without sin, you are a righteous liar.
— Michael Bassey Johnson, Classic Quotations From The Otherworlds
Although her eyes are neither golden nor heavenly blue, Terri Stambaugh has the vision of an angel, for she sees through you and knows your truest heart, but loves you anyway, in spite of all the ways that you have fallen from a state of grace.
— Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas
When you can cross the highwire without falling off, you are in a state of perfect balance, perfect grace. It is the same with obedience. When you submit, submit totally, you enter that same equilibrium, surrender and grace. This is the meaning of erotic.
— Chloe Thurlow, A Girl's Adventure
Sometimes we go along, thinking"Ah, this is it - this is what true peace feels like…" Then, in a moment of grace, something shifts in our hearts, and in awestruck wonder, we whisper, "oh my, I just didn't know there could more...
— Kate Mullane Robertson
God is gracious to always give a warning before He sends judgment.
— Jim George
Vaughn folded his arms. ‘The reason why you’ve lasted longer than most of your erstwhile colleagues is because you don’t do drama. I don’t like drama. I get enough drama at home. My wife could teach the RSC a few things about drama.'For someone who claimed that he didn’t do drama, Vaughn was one of the biggest drama queens she knew.
— Sarra Manning, It Felt Like a Kiss
Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.
— Augustine of Hippo
I was thinking how most people don't make you feel much of anything at all. Don't make you feel like time spent with them has grace, like every moment in their company is a gift. But Finn did. Finn, my midsummer night's dream.
— Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club
She heard Piers give an excited little cry and someone gave an excited little cry in return, and Grace Vaughn appeared in the open doorway, laden down with garment bags.For one fleeting moment, Ellie saw both husband and wife’s faces light up before they resembled their usual expressions – a scowl and a pout respectively.
— Sarra Manning, It Felt Like a Kiss
She will always be the rainbow in my clouds.
— Oprah Winfrey on Maya Angelou
We make a fatal mistake when we try to force Scripture to offer redemption to those who want to go to heaven but who don't want a relationship with the living God. By trying to offer some minimal standard of conduct that will allow them to qualify for salvation while continuing to to pursue their own agendas, we distort the gospel and destroy its power, and we concoct legalistic games to give them a false sense of security.
— Wayne Jacobsen, He Loves Me!: Learning to Live in the Father's Affection
Consequently, any boy who appeared at such a time was bound to carry a certain weight, a sort of saving grace, a fateful gravity.
— Trebor Healey, A Horse Named Sorrow
I accepted what the Sisters taught in religion class: that God is loving, merciful, charitable, forgiving. That message didn't jibe with adults smacking kids.
— Sonia Sotomayor, My Beloved World
Grace does not depend on what we have done, but on what God has done for us.
— Wendy Blight, Living So That: Making Faith-Filled Choices in the Midst of a Messy Life
[She] had occasionally glimpsed a series of interchangeable well-groomed blondes accompanying him to work events, then Grace had rocked up with her funny-coloured hair and her funny-coloured tights, and Vaughn had been smitten. Well, as smitten as Vaughn could be.
— Sarra Manning, It Felt Like a Kiss
Why grace? Because some days, it's the only thing we have in common. Because it's the one thing I'm certain is real. Because it's the reason I'm here. Because it's the oxygen of religious life, or so says a musician friend of mine, who tells me, “Without it, religion will surely suffocate you.” Because so many of us are gasping for air and grasping for God, but fleeing from a kind of religious experience that has little to do with anything sacred or gracious.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Grace to me is a little bit of extra help when you're feeling stuck or doomed or, probably, hopefully, out of good ideas on how to save yourself, and how to salvage the situation or the friendship or the whatever it is,” Anne Lamott once told me. “I wish it was accompanied by harp music so you could know that's what was happening, but for me it's that extra pause or that extra breath or that extra minute's patience against all odds.” On that first trip to Ireland, grace—the kick-in-the-pants, clarifying, cosmic-pause-button kind of grace—didn't just have a harp. It had an entire soundtrack...
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Heaven is the only place where prayers are not made.
— Ellen J. Barrier, How to Trust God When All Other Resources Have Failed
There is no shame here. The places where we still fear are simply the places we have yet to fully receive God’s love. Only by his grace and in his love can we let our fear go. Let go and receive. Receive his dreams. Receive his love. It is an exchange of fear for desire. It is an exchange of death for life. There is no fear in love. And I can tell you this with certainty: God does not want you to live in fear. And he does want you to live. Don’t be afraid. Just believe.
— Stasi Eldredge, Becoming Myself: Embracing God's Dream of You
This is where Jean's stubbornness and, perhaps, God's stubborn grace came into play. “My definition of grace would be multifaceted, but part of it would certainly be God's passion for brokenness. He does, he really does love brokenness,” Jean told me. “Grace doesn't obsess with ourselves. It obsesses with people and with brokenness. This is a hard place to live, but God is bigger than hard places to live.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
How is it more for the glory of God to save man irresistibly, than to save him as a free agent, by such grace as he may either concur or resist?
— John Wesley
When thou art at thy worst and lowest, yet 'underneath' thee 'are everlasting arms'. Sin may drag thee ever so low, but Christ's great atonement is still under all.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: New International Version
The anxious heart, in its flailings, loses its hold on whatever grace God has bestowed upon it, and is sapped of the strength to "resist the temptations of the Evil One, who is all the more ready to fish...in troubled waters.
— Lauren F. Winner, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis
God can and does use anything God chooses to get our attention. Who's to say the hawk wasn't sent as an agent of grace to catch my wandering attention and quiet what Buddhists might call my “monkey mind,” which is more often than not swinging wildly from branch to branch on intellectual and emotional trees. On the way back down the hiking trail after my encounter with the hawk in Big Sky, I stopped thinking and started looking and listening. That's when I realized winter was turning into spring before me. Change was happening. Creation, and perhaps the Creator, was speaking. I just needed to be outside to hear the voice.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Some theologians argue that one kind of grace is better than another, and that some people think they're experiencing “divine” grace when it's actually just “common.”To me, that's like bickering about what color God's eyes are. (They're hazel, in case you were wondering.)
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
We're so worried about the legal details of crossing doctrinal t's and dotting sociopolitical i's that we miss the big picture. The love picture. The one thing Jesus was really clear about: LOVE. If we could just get that one thing down, I believe the details would take care of themselves.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
In her inestimable audacity, Julia was the catalyst in my life for something beautiful. I hadn't anticipated her—hadn't even wanted her, truthfully—but there she was. A little something extra that made all the difference in the world.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Trying to explain or define grace is like catching the wind in a cardboard box or describing the color green.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Such arguments remind me of a scene from Woody Allen's movie Manhattan, where a group of people is talking about sex at a cocktail party and one woman says that her doctor told her she had been having the wrong kind of orgasm. Woody Allen's character responds by saying, “Did you have the wrong kind? Really? I've never had the wrong kind. Never, ever. My worst one was right on the money.” Grace works the same way. It is what it is and it's always right on the money. You can call it what you like, categorize it, vivisect it, qualify, quantify, or dismiss it, and none of it will make grace anything other than precisely what grace is: audacious, unwarranted, and unlimited.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Grace has a way of sneaking up on you like that. When you least deserve it.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Sometimes grace is having the strength to persevere through the storm.Sometimes it's having the guts to rebuild, to take a chance, to follow your nose and your heart rather than your head.Sometimes grace is finding out that your preconceived notions are dead wrong. Sometimes it's being surprised by joy. Sometimes grace is something you can feel even if you can't see it. And sometimes it's a bowl of watermelon gazpacho when you were expecting Taco Bell.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Everyone experiences grace, even if they don't realize it. It's kind of like Moby's music. You could ask your average sixty-something-year-old retired banker in Connecticut if he's ever heard of Moby and/or his music and the response you'd receive more than likely would be a resounding, “No—what's a Moby?” But if you say, “Remember that American Express commercial where Tiger Woods is putting around New York City? Remember the song playing? That was Moby.” “Oh, then, OK. I guess I have heard Moby,” our theoretical retired banker in New Canaan might say. “So … what exactly is a Moby?” That's like grace. Not that grace is a pretentious vegan techno-rocker, but you get the idea. Grace is everywhere, all around us, all of the time. We only need the ears to hear it and the eyes to see it.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
When Annunziata said she loved me or any of her thousands of other friends and beloveds, she was really saying, at least in my mind, “God loves you.” To quote the singer/songwriter James Taylor, she showered the people she loved with love, always showing the way that she felt without holding back. Even as her body could barely contain her soul any longer, she'd open wide the gates of herself with a smile, that giggle, her twinkling eyes, and she'd let the supernatural love flow through her. Walking out of the chapel after her funeral, a woman I'd never seen before stopped me and said, “You're Cathleen, aren't you?” “Yes,” I croaked, tears rolling off my nose as I fingered the prayer card with Annunziata's picture on it. Slipping an arm around my shoulders, the woman explained that she was one of Annunziata's former students and said, “She loved you so much.” I know.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
I would say that grace is startling,” Jean told me as he began retelling the story of how he wound up as pastor of Lagniappe Presbyterian Church, a growing congregation that meets in a glorified metal hangar in Bay St. Louis. “It's just startling. It isn't supposed to work. This wasn't supposed to work.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
While it's true that you may lose your religion during the course of a lifetime, you never lose your salvation. Once you let Jesus in your kitchen, he just keeps on making peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and he never leaves.
— Cathleen Falsani, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace
Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, though knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.
— C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.
— Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction
I feel grace. Warm and flowing like a river, it pours over me. I am awash in grace and cannot help but raise my face to it as I would the sun. I want to laugh as it rains downs on me, ripples through my limbs, cleanses them of fatigue and self-loathing. I am reborn in this grace, and suddenly, I can do anything.
— Robin LaFevers, Grave Mercy
The world does not turn without moments of grace. Who cares how small.
— Colum McCann, TransAtlantic
...The means of choice:She might choose to ascendThe falling dream,By some angelic power without a nameReverse the motion, plunge into upwardness,Know height without an end,Density melt to air, silence yield a voice--Within her fall she felt the pull of Grace.
— May Sarton, Selected Poems
I listened to you tell me, tell everyone, and all the world, “Praise the Lord.” You were broken, but not by bullets and bombs. You were broken by grace.
— N.D. Wilson, Death by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent
True class can never receive the highest grade..for its grade is endless
— Denise Newsome
Today you will envy the blessings of another, or you will bask in the wonder of the amazing grace you have been given.
— Paul David Tripp
Her father, indulgent in his concern, had opened his library to her, and at last she could read to her heart's content. In all, these past few weeks had been some of the most peaceable of her life. She had the sense of existing inside a fragile pause, a moment of grace.
— Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni
Grace is more than God opening the door to salvation
—  it’s God bringing people in.
Grace means that God steps into the lives of particular individuals with the purpose and effect of saving them. He needs no permission to do this, nor is He under any obligation to do so.
— Colin S. Smith, Jonah: Navigating a God-Centered Life
No matter how many good deeds we preform, they aren’t the ticket to earning God’s favor. God graces us in spite of what we do in this life, not because of.
— Bill Courtney
A bolt that raised her heart to blazing heightAnd made the vertical the very thrust of hope,And found its path at last(Slow work of Grace).
— May Sarton, Selected Poems
Grace is not something one possesses; instead, grace is something one receives.
— Bill Courtney, Against the Grain: A Coach's Wisdom on Character, Faith, Family, and Love
Samuel understood at last why this being hated men and women so much: he hated them because they were so like himself, because the worst of the was mirrored in them. He was the source of all that was bad in men and women, but he had none of the greatness, and none of the grace, of which human beings were capable, so that by only by corrupting them was his own pain diminished, and thus his existence made more tolerable.
— John Connolly, The Infernals
There is grace for the unrighteous and the self-righteous alike, and the father loves both sons well.
— Justin Buzzard, The Big Story: How the Bible Makes Sense out of Life
You can't win the race without God's grace
— Ojo Michael E.
If at anytime this life of ours grows feeble, or low, or lonely, I know no other remedy than to return to its Eternal Source, to God Himself; and through Him all the means of grace become again living and true; and through Him all His creatures become again near and dear and accessible
— Elizabeth Rundle Charles
Sometimes, Lev, I just want to smack you.""You already hit him with a car.
— Neal Shusterman, UnSouled
The way to conquer sin is not by working hard to change our deeds, but by trusting Jesus to change our desires. Follow Me, pg. 111.
— David Platt
A basic reality of life is that we all struggle. We hurt and have hurt other people. We all feel lost sometimes. This isn’t all we are, but it is a part of who we are. The only question I have when I’m with someone is, “Can they admit it? And will they let me admit it too?
— Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith
If God were willing to sell His grace, we would accept it more quickly and gladly than when He offers it for nothing.
— Martin Luther
I love that there's no cutoff where we get labeled and sent off to a home for hopeless, cranky, depressives. Every day is a new chance to listen longer and be braver and love more. We get to try again and again and again.
— Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith
Winter is already a lost shape, forgottenin the ground. Instead, here is Springwith all the grace of a womansmoothing out her apron.
— Cecilia Llompart, The Wingless
I doubt that anyone has a Damascus moment after experiencing discrimination. Most people seem to have shining moments of change after experiencing grace.
— Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith
All of my secrets and scars and wishes and dreams can live together in this one body without shame, without blame, and without fear. I am all loved, all accepted, and all in service to God. In his eyes, regardless of what I did or didn’t do today, I am loved. I am His, so I am enough.
— Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith
The smaller you get—the smaller life makes you—the easier it is to see the grandeur of grace. While I am far more incapable than I may have initially thought, God is infinitely more capable than I ever hoped.
— Tullian Tchividjian
Creation is not abandoned by God, it is not godless, for apart from God it would not be at all; it is not deprived of grace for it owes its existence to grace. Rather, creation is graced, it is holy; in creation God may be encountered.
— Andrew Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology
She never says gracias because life is made of survival not grace, she says, and servants are paid to bring what they're asked.
— Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna
Never forget what you were saved from.
— Jim George
Reading the scriptures through the lenses of the Law you see God as unapproachable, through the lenses of Grace you see the outstretched arms of Jesus saying "come".
— John Paul Warren
Insofar as the intervention of grace constitutes the core of religious experience, the constant aim of every religious movement ought to be a reduction of transcendence coupled with an unswerving dedication to immanence. Let metaphysics and science pursue the elaboration of transcendent, causal economies; the domain of religion is immanence and, more precisely, the immanence of what is actually given as a gift. Religious thinking will be religious in character precisely to the extent that it is capable of faithfully thinking immanence. Religion, for the sake of grace, forsakes transcendence.
— Adam Miller, Badiou, Marion and St Paul: Immanent Grace
A deeper intimacy with God sharpens our awareness of sin, which causes a stronger need for grace and a freer offering of mercy.
— Alisa Hope Wagner, Eve of Awakening
We are going to make mistakes no matter what, so it's better to be strong in faith despite our mistakes than weak in faith because of them.
— Alisa Hope Wagner, Eve of Awakening
I need God’s grace and something baked with peanut butter and chocolate.
— Gloria Furman, Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home
Typically, images or paintings are designated as anamorphic when, in order for the image to appear, a particular line of sight must be adopted. The image only shows up when approached from the angle dictated to the viewer by the image's own set of conditions. In this sense, the viewer must 're-form' their perspective to match the perspective demanded by the image. We are not free to approach the image as we wish; the image is free to assign us a perspective proper to itself... Anamorphosis, then, describes the freedom of the phenomenon to give itself as it wishes and it measures the extent to which this freedom turns the tables on the one to whom it appears. To receive a phenomenon as it wishes to give itself is to yield control and suspend our own timetables and preconditions in order to be faithful to the conditions set by what gives itself.
— Adam Miller, Badiou, Marion and St Paul: Immanent Grace
The fire of God comes where ever there is a sacrifice.
— John Paul Warren
Repentance is not merely turning away from your sin but turning to the Lamb who takes away your sin. "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world". 1 John 1:29
— John Paul Warren
Spiritual maturity is not defined by how well one applies Biblical principles to “suppress sin”. If you are capable of suppressing your sins or managing them, you would have no need for a Redeemer.
— John Paul Warren
ritual maturity is not defined by how well one applies Biblical principles to “suppress sin”. If you are capable of suppressing your sins or managing them, you would have no need for a Redeemer.
— John Paul Warren
For dismissed by You from Paradise, and having taken my journey into a far country, I cannot by myself return, unless Thou meetest the wanderer: for my return has throughout the whole tract of this world's time waited for Your mercy.
— Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms: Psalms I - LXXII
Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.
— Friedrich Schiller
To remember the past is to see that we are here today by grace, that we have survived as a gift.
— Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces
I don't like this war. I don't like the cold-blooded scheming at the beginning and the carnage at the end and the grumbling and the jealousies and the pettishness in the middle. I hate the lack of gallantry and grace
—  the self-seeking
Every story of conversion is a story of blessed defeat.
— C.S. Lewis
Fear not, brothers and sisters, God, who is full of grace and abounding in steadfast love, meets us in our sin and transforms us for God's glory and the healing of God's world. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, your sins are forgiven, be now at peace.
— Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
Nothing in all the vast universe can come to pass otherwise than God has eternally purposed. Here is a foundation of faith. Here is a resting place for the intellect. Here is an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast. It is not blind fate, unbridled evil, man or Devil, but the Lord Almighty who is ruling the world, ruling it according to His own good pleasure and for His own eternal glory.
— Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God
What is ordinary to you maybe a desert of woeful newness to another.
— Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley
The Spirit of God draws or leads the sinner from one phase to another, gradually, in proportion as one is found having a disposition to responsive hearing. Grace flows ordinarily from prevenient grace through the grace of baptism through the grace of justification toward sanctifying grace leading toward consummation in glory. The power by which one cooperates with grace is grace itself. In this way God draws all to himself, eliciting a hunger for righteousness and a desire for truth.
— Thomas C. Oden, The Transforming Power of Grace
Faith itself is an act of human willing enabled and disciplined by grace.
— Thomas C. Oden, The Transforming Power of Grace
Grace equals ability. God gives us grace to match our call. When we do our own thing, we do it on our own. When we follow His leading, He always supplies the grace and the energy to do what He's calling us to do.
— Joyce Meyer
God spoke through the prophet Isaiah and said in Isaiah 54:4-10 (NLT)4 “Fear not; you will no longer live in shame. Don’t be afraid; there is no more disgrace for you.You will no longer remember the shame of your youth and the sorrows of widowhood.5 For your Creator will be your husband; the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name!He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the earth.6 For the Lord has called you back from your grief— as though you were a young wife abandoned by her husband,” says your God.7 “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will take you back.8 In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while. But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.9 “Just as I swore in the time of Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth,so now I swear that I will never again be angry and punish you.10 For the mountains may move and the hills disappear,but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,” says the Lord, who has mercy on you.
— The Prophet Isaiah
Mom smiled and brushed my hair away from my face. “You can call yourself whatever youwant.”“Okay. Sophie Awesome Sparkle-Princess it is.
— Rachel Hawkins, Spell Bound
Measurements is your saving grace if you want to raise steam.
— Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam
Freedom found me the day I realized I was not bound to witchcraft. The FATHER was waiting, He was scanning the horizon for the day I would realize I could come home. And He ran to welcome me into His loving arms.
— Kristine McGuire, Escaping the Cauldron: Exposing occult influences in everyday life
Evangelicals believe they are saved by grace through faith but then add a man-made waiver that you have to work as hard as you can can meet middle-class behavioral patterns to hang onto it.
— Steve Stockman, Two Weeks
There are many things evil people can take from you. However, they can never steal your ability to laugh and laugh loud.
— Shannon L. Alder
Vengeance cannot abide the agony of grace.
— Anne Elisabeth Stengl, Goddess Tithe
There is only one thing to do when you meet the Living God; you must fall on your face and repent of your sins. Repentance is bittersweet business; Repentance is not just a conversion exercise -- it is the posture of the Christian, much like 'tree' or 'full lotus' is the posture of the Yogi. Repentance is our daily fruit, our hourly washing, our minute by minute wake-up call; our reminder of God's creation, Jesus' blood, and the Holy Spirit's comfort. Repentance is the only no shame solution to a renewed Christian conscience, because it only proves the obvious: God was right all along.
— Rosaria Champagne Butterfield
Certainly we should be very active in seeking God, and Jesus himself called us to 'ask, seek, knock' in order to find him. Yet those who enter a relationship with God inevitably look back and recognize that God's grace had sought them out, breaking them open to new realities.
— Timothy J. Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
I saw her face then, and I recognized something of myself in her expression. Her eyes flicked over the shelves, seeking possibilities for escape.
— Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver
GRACEGRACE is the GIFT of God's Riches' the PEACE of God, The LOVE of God, The HOPE of God.
— Max Lucado
The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God.
— Paul Tournier
Losing well was a gift, but winning well is this stuff of the authentic manhood.
— Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides
The ecstatic beauty and soulful grace of Rumi’s poetry inspires human hearts to believe in possibilities beyond the predictably fatal.
— Aberjhani, Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.
When you have nothing to offer, love gives abundantly.
— E'yen A. Gardner, Love Letters
Come and discover a love you don't have to work for.
— E'yen A. Gardner, Love Letters
Forever?"Sam's lips smiled, but above his grin, his yellow eyes turned sad, as if he knew it was a lie."Longer.
— Maggie Stiefvater
Long after the other voices had dropped away, Sam kept howling, very soft and slow.When he finally fell silent, the night felt dead. Sitting was intolerable. I stood up, paced, clenched and unclenched my hands into fists. Finally I took the guitar that Sam had played and I screamed and smashed it into pieces on Dad's desk.
— Maggie Stiefvater
The beauty of the twentieth century is the charm of the hospital, the grace of the cemetery, of consumption and emaciation. I admit that I have submitted to it all; worse, I have loved with all my heart.
— Jean Lorrain, Monsieur De Phocas
We do good works, not in order to be saved, but because we are saved; not in order to earn God's favor, but with the favor of His help.
— Alex Brett Harris
People who say we are just preaching "extreme grace" must not understand how extremely gracious our Father is.
— D.R. Silva
How long did it take to become a gracious person? One who could accept help and give thanks without being resentful of it?
— Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds
I am not interested in having the world revolve around me; that's too boring of an idea. I would rather revolve around the world and try to leave my fingerprints, everywhere. My fingerprints mingled in with all the other fingerprints and all the laughter and all the beautiful things like gratitude, grace, faithfulness and flowers.
— C. JoyBell C.
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful graces of God.
— William Kent Krueger, Ordinary Grace