Quaker Quotes

• My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a quaker.

  Woody Allen

  Funny, Humor, Night

  "The Good Luck Book". Book by Stefan Bechtel, Laurence Roy Stains (p. 371), 1997.

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• Now, Friends, deal plainly with yourselves, and let the eternal Light search you, and try you, for the good of your souls. For this will deal plainly with you. It will rip you up, and lay you open, and make all manifest which lodges in you; the secret subtlety of the enemy of your souls, this eternal searcher and trier will make manifest. Therefore all to this come, and by this be searched, and judged, and led and guided. For to this you must stand or fall.

  Margaret Fell

  Rip, Fall, Light

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• In those days, slavery was not looked upon, even in Quaker Philadelphia, with the shudder and abhorrence one feels towards it now.

  John Sergeant Wise

  Philadelphia, Slavery, Feels

  John Sergeant Wise, Paul Dennis Sporer (2005). “End of an Era: The Last Days of Traditional Southern Culture as Seen Through the Eyes of a Young Confederate Soldier”, p.24, Anza Publishing

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• I was a catastrophe at Science and Games, but the good thing about Quaker schools is that they encourage you in those subjects for which you show an aptitude.

  Richard Rodney Bennett

  Encouragement, School, Games

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• However, ironically, I was baptized Presbyterian, and went to a Quaker school for twelve years

  Brian De Palma

  School, Years, Twelve

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• However, I spent most of my time in a Quaker school.

  Brian De Palma

  School, My Time

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• On landing at New York I caught the yellow fever by walking to the bank at Greenwich to get the money to which my father's letter of credit entitled me. The kind man who commanded the ship that brought me from France, whose name was a common one, John Smith, took particular charge of me, removed me to Morristown, N. J., and placed me under the care of two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding - house. To their skilful and untiring ministrations I may safely say I owe the prolongation of my life.

  John James Audubon

  New York, Men, Kind Man

  "Selected Journals and Other Writings".

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• A good End cannot sanctify evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it.

  William Penn

  Mean, Evil, May

  Benjamin Franklin, William Penn (2012). “Franklin's Way to Wealth and Penn's Maxims”, p.67, Courier Corporation

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• If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

  Mother Teresa

  Motivational, Family, Mother

  Mother Teresa (2010). “Where There Is Love, There Is God: A Path to Closer Union with God and Greater Love for Others”, p.329, Image

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• The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles.

  William Penn

  Inspirational, Happiness, Being Happy

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• True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.

  William Penn

  Men, Doe, World

  William Penn (2001). “No Cross, No Crown”, p.42, Destiny Image Publishers

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• Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

  Anne Frank

  Inspirational, Hope, Believe

  "Voices Carry" by Alice Hoffman, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 22, 2011.

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• I was maybe 5 or 6, and my grandmother would begin sitting me in the Quaker meeting house. I asked my grandmother, 'What am I supposed to do?' and she said, 'Just wait, we're going inside to greet the light.' I liked that—this idea to go inside to find that light within, literally as well as figuratively.

  James Turrell

  Grandmother, Light, Ideas

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• To Turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives.

  John Woolman

  Love Is, Treasure, Universal Love

  John Woolman (1837). “A Journal of the Life, Gospel Labours, and Christian Experiences, of that Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, John Woolman”, p.326

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• This gathered worship, as Quakers call it, is not only absence of noise. Gathered worship springs from the reverent, silent expectation that God will come among the people. The silence deepens as we feel ourselves drawn beautifully to God and each other. Our hearts and souls burst with thanksgiving-a thanksgiving best expressed by silence. Silence growing from awe is the natural human response to hints of the Divine.

  J. Brent Bill

  Spring, Heart, People

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• Force may subdue, but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the laurel.

  William Penn

  Forgiveness, Winning, Forgiving

  William Penn (1782). “The Select Works of William Penn....”, p.166

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• Oh Lord, may I be directed what to do and what to leave undone.

  Elizabeth Fry

  God, Religious, May

  Elizabeth Gurney Fry, Katharine Fry, Rachel Elizabeth Cresswell (1847). “Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry: With Extracts from Her Letters and Journal”, p.307

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• Friends come back from their worship with a new sense of ordination, but not the ordination of human hands. Something has happened in the stillness that makes the heart more tender, more sensitive, more shocked by evil, more dedicated to ideals of life, and more eager to push back the skirts of darkness and to widen the area of light and love.

  Rufus Jones

  Heart, Light, Hands

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• Quakers are known for wanting to give back. Ban the bomb and the civil rights movement and the native American struggle for justice - those things were very, very front-burner in my childhood, as were the ideas of working for peace and if you have more than you need, then you share it with people who don't.

  Bonnie Raitt

  Struggle, Native American, Rights

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• I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do ... let me do it now.

  William Penn

  Kindness, World, Neglect

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• There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression.

  John Woolman

  God, Christian, Heart

  John WOOLMAN (1840). “A Journal of the Life, Gospel labours, and christian experiences of ---”, p.238

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• In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.

  Anne Frank

  Motivational, Believe, Divorce

  FaceBook post by Anne Frank from Apr 07, 2015

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• There is a quiet, open place in the depths of the mind, to which we can go many times in the day and lift up our soul in praise, thankfulness and conscious unity. With practise this God-ward turn of the mind becomes an almost constant direction, underlying all our other activities.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Soul, Mind, Unity

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• Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Confidence, Wisdom

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• The Quakers have a saying: "An enemy is one whose story we have not heard." To communicate to post-Christians, I must first listen to their stories for clues to how they view the world and how they view people like me.

  Philip Yancey

  Christian, Views, People

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