Laura > Laura's Quotes

“Lord, whatsoever this day may bring, Thy name be praised. Be gracious unto me and help me. Grant me strength to bear whatsoever Thou dost send, And let not fear overrule me. I trust Thy grace, and commit my life wholly into Thy Hands. Whether I live or whether I die, I am with Thee and Thou are with me … Lord, I wait for Thy salvation, and for the coming of Thy Kingdom. Amen.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“When He was challenged by Jesus to accept a life of voluntary poverty, the rich young man knew he was faced with the simple alternative of obedience or disobedience. When Levi was called from the receipt of custom and Peter from his nets, there was no doubt that Jesus meant business. Both of them were to leave everything and follow. Again, when Peter was called to walk on the rolling sea, he had to get up and risk his life. Only one thing was required in each case-to rely on Christ's word, and cling to it as offering greater security than all the securities in the world.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”
― Victor Hugo

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”
― C.S. Lewis

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
― Victor Hugo

“Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Those who do not weep, do not see.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”
― A.A. Milne

“The things that make me different are the things that make me.”
― A. A. Milne

“I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Expectations are resentments under construction.”
― Anne Lamott

“My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone.”
― Anne Lamott

“Maybe it is because music is about as physical as it gets: your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We’re walking temples of noise, and when you add the tender hearts to this mix, it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn’t get to any other way.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ballads and Other Poems

“The heart, like the mind, has a memory.
And in it are kept the most precious keepsakes.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.”
― Longfellow

“And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
the Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion
that if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilled on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow