Julie R > Julie's Quotes

“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well-being of one's companion.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley, Stand a Little Taller: Counsel and Inspiration for Each Day of the Year

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“In this matter, you should not concern yourself for my sake.”
― Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife

“I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“If our theology doesn't shift and change over our lifetimes, then I have to wonder if we're paying attention.”
― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

“Anyone who gets to the end of their life with the exact same beliefs and opinions as they had at the beginning is doing it wrong.”
― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

“I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things.”
― Amy Poehler

“I wanted to fall in love, marry a dork like me, make more dorks.”
― Joshilyn Jackson, The Almost Sisters

“The Dalai Lama said that “religion is like going out to dinner with friends. Everyone may order something different, but everyone can still sit at the same table.”
― Anne Lamott, Almost Everything: Notes on Hope

“Crivens!”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“Then it was you who wounded Aravis?"
"It was I."
"But what for?"
"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”
― C.S. Lewis

“In my struggle to find church, I’ve often felt that if I could just find the right denomination or the right congregation, if I could just become the right person or believe the right things, then my search would be over at last. But right’s got nothing to do with it. Waiting around for right will leave you waiting around forever. The church is God saying: “I’m throwing a banquet, and all these mismatched, messed-up people are invited. Here, have some wine.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

“Of course, the fact that a single biblical text can mean many things doesn’t mean it can mean anything. Slave traders justified the exploitation of black people by claiming the curse on Noah’s son Ham rendered all Africans subhuman. Many Puritans and pioneers appealed to the stories of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan to support attacks on indigenous populations. More recently, I’ve heard Christians shrug off sins committed by American politicians because King David assaulted women too. Anytime the Bible is used to justify the oppression and exploitation of others, we have strayed far from the God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, “out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).”
― Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

“The gentle Rabbi reminds us that few things really matter and only one thing is necessary ... Martha found it in the gentle reminder to slow down, let go, and be careful of challenging another woman's choices, for you never know when she may be sitting at the feet of God.”
― Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood

“Today I'm flying low and I'm not saying a word. I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I'm taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I'm traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple.”
― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems

“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ”
― Norman Vincent Peale

“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”
― Calvin Coolidge

“Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Brave New Family: G.K. Chesterton on Men and Women, Children, Sex, Divorce, Marriage and the Family

“When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things - not the great occasions - give off the greatest glow of happiness.”
― Bob Hope

“Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart. ”
― Washington Irving

“ "At Christmas, tea is compulsory. Relatives are optional.”
― Robert Godden

“Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.”
― Alan Bradley, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

“Christmas was definitely the best thing ever, even better than pizza. But instead of all her favorite toppings, Amitola was surrounded by all her favorite people.”
― Aishabella Sheikh, Jungle Princess

“The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.”
― Louisa May Alcott

“Anticipation lifts the heart. Desire is created to be fulfilled - perhaps not all at once, more likely in slow stages. Isaiah uttered his prophetic words about the renewal of the natural Creation into a wilderness of spiritual barrenness and thirst. For him, and for many other Old Testament seers, the vacuum of dry indifference into which he spoke was not yet a place of fulfillment. Yet the promise of God through this human mouthpiece (and the word "promise" always holds a kind of certainty) was verdant with hope, a kind of greenness and glory. A softening of hard-heartedness, a lively expectation, would herald the coming of Messiah. And once again, in this season of Advent, the same promise for the same Anointed One is coming closer.”
― Luci Shaw

“Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with the fragrance of the fields and the freshness of the oceans which you have made, and help me to hear and to hold in all dearness those exacting and wonderful words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying: Follow me.”
― Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”
― D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures