Quotes by British Authors - Page 492

People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh?And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts' Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country.So, reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble.
Terry Pratchett
You will remember how, as a schoolboy, I had destroyed my religious life by a vicious subjectivism which made 'realizations' the aim of prayer; turning away from God to seek states of mind, and trying to produce those states of mind by 'maistry'.
C.S. Lewis
I hear another man cry, “Oh, sir my want of strength lies mainly in this, that I cannot repent sufficiently!” A curious idea men have of what repentance is! Many fancy that so many tears are to be shed, and so many groans are to be heaved, and so much despair is to be endured. Whence comes this unreasonable notion? Unbelief and despair are sins, and therefore I do not see how they can be constituent elements of acceptable repentance; yet there are many who regard them as necessary parts of true Christian experience. They are in great error. Still, I know what they mean, for in the days of my darkness I used to feel in the same way. I desired to repent, but I thought that I could not do it, and yet all the while I was repenting. Odd as it may sound, I felt that I could not feel. I used to get into a corner and weep, because I could not weep; and I fell into bitter sorrow because I could not sorrow for sin. What a jumble it all is when in our unbelieving state we begin to judge our own condition! It is like a blind man looking at his own eyes. My heart was melted within me for fear, because I thought that my heart was as hard as an adamant stone. My heart was broken to think that it would not break. Now I can see that I was exhibiting the very thing which I thought I did not possess; but then I knew not where I was. Remember that the man who truly repents is never satisfied with his own repentance. We can no more repent perfectly than we can live perfectly. However pure our tears, there will always be some dirt in them: there will be something to be repented of even in our best repentance. But listen! To repent is to change your mind about sin, and Christ, and all the great things of God. There is sorrow implied in this; but the main point is the turning of the heart from sin to Christ. If there be this turning, you have the essence of true repentance, even though no alarm and no despair should ever have cast their shadow upon your mind.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Perhaps the prayer that is offered when the time for praying is over is more terribly pathetic than any other. Yet one might hesitate to say that this prayer was unanswered.("The Undying Thing")
Barry Pain
When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.
C.S. Lewis
I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this, that I may die to self, and live wholly to Him.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Let us live this day in that light, that life, and that peace, so that we may gain the victory over those things that press us down.
George Dawson
Our vision of the heavenly realm...can sustain us through the most difficult of days and circumstances. It births hope amidst hardship and nurtures faith amidst opposition.
David Timms
All those books, all those prayers and she had got nothing from them. When everything went well for her she had been able to pray, she couldn't now. There was such urgency in her present situation that until the pressure was removed she couldn't think about God. She hadn't the patience to pray. It was a shock to her. Surely God was for these times?
Dorothy Whipple
...if He made us, He must know He is to blame when He has made us weak or evil. And He must understand why we have been so made, and when we throw ourselves into the dust before Him, and pray for help and pardon, surely--surely He will lend an ear!
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The author chuckles at the resistance to using a prepared, written liturgy in prayer. He compares it to being unwilling to dress in any clothing we did not make ourselves, or being unwilling to drive a car we did not construct entirely by ourselves.
N.T. Wright
He had no idea that he never went out of the house without her blessing going with him too, hovering, like a little echo of finished love, round that once dear head
Elizabeth von Arnim
After defending the value of prepared prayers, the author cautions against over-reliance on them. Just as David could not fight in the armor of King Saul, we are called to fight in the way God has equipped us uniquely.
N.T. Wright
It is no use to ask God with factitious earnestness for A when our whole mind is in reality filled with the desire for B. We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.
C.S. Lewis
As your father keeps clean his lamp to have good light, so keep clean your spirit.
Richard Llewellyn
Replace worry with prayer. Make the decision to pray whenever you catch yourself worrying.
Elizabeth George
It's hard to criticize someone if you are praying for them.
Elizabeth George
Alone all day, Juniper would remember the animals and places he loved, and hold them in his own heart before the great Heart that made them. He was learning to find quietness inside himself. He was learning to pray.
Margaret McAllister
You must learn to tell worry from thought and thought from prayer. Sometimes a light will go from your life, and a thought becomes a prayer til you are strong enough to stand under the weight of your own thought again.
Richard Llewellyn
Prayer is in essence rebellion—rebellion against the world in its fallenness. Prayer is the undying refusal to accept as normal what is pervasively abnormal. It is the refusal of every agenda, every scheme, every interpretation that is at odds with the norm as originally established by God.
David G. Wells
Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer, and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.
Elizabeth George
I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been born in God's thought, and then made by God is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking."This is a prayer of contentment
C.S. Lewis
There will be times in your life when you want to pray but feel so far from God that prayer seems impossible. The flesh will tell you that God is against you, that you have gone too far and that He is no longer interested in you. But faith defies the flesh. It contradicts Satan’s lies. It rises up against defeat, gloom, and despair and finds hope in God.
Colin S. Smith
Lord, make me less like Jonah and more like Jesus. Save me from being the kind of person who cares more about my comfort, my reputation, and my success than I do about the people You are calling me to serve. Help me to keep all of my dreams on Your altar and be ready at all times to respond with faith and obedience to Your call.
Colin S. Smith
As the genuine religious impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. 'I come to seek God because I need Him', may be an adequate formula for prayer. 'I come to adore His splendour, and fling myself and all that I have at His feet', is the only possible formula for worship.
Evelyn Underhill
Second: them poor things well out o' this, and never no more will I interfere with Mrs. Cruncher's flopping, never no more!""Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be," said Miss Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, "I have no doubt it is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own superintendence.—O my poor darlings!""I go so far as to say, miss, moreover," proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit—"and let my words be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself—that wot my opinions respectin' flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present time.""There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man," cried the distracted Miss Pross, "and I hope she finds it answering her expectations.
Charles Dickens
Another part or piece,' said Diabolus, 'of mine excellent armour, is a dumb and prayerless spirit, a spirit that scorns to cry for mercy, let the danger be ever so great; therefore be you, my Mansoul, sure that you make use of this.
John Bunyan
Prayer did not come easily to me for I always feel that prayer is a silent things, and opening of the heart. To ask for earthly benefits, to reel out a list of requirements and expect them to be supplied is not prayer. It is putting God in the same category as an intelligent grocer.
D.E. Stevenson
What we do every time we pray is to confess our impotence and God's sovereignty.
J.I. Packer
It is simple. Men lose their birthrights for a mess of pottage only if they stop using the gifts given them by God for their betterment. By prayer. That is the first and greatest gift. use the gift of prayer. Ask for strength of mind, and a clear vision. Then sense. Use your sense. Not all of us are born for greatness, but all of us have sense. Make use of it. Think. Think long and well. By prayer and good thought you will conquer all enemies....Behold, the night is coming. Prepare, for the time is at hand.
Richard Llewellyn
Worry, my son?...I am not worried now and I never have or will. You must learn to tell worry from thought, and thought from prayer. Sometimes a light will go from your life...and your life becomes a prayer, till you are strong enough to stand under the weight of your own thought again.
Richard Llewellyn
The greater the difficulty to be overcome, the more will it be seen to the glory of God how much can be done by prayer and faith.
George Müller
To each his own way and his own prayer. God does not take us at our word. He looks deep into our hearts. It is not the ceremonies or rituals that make a difference, but whether our hearts are sufficiently pure or not.
Elif Shafak
As a mother, you need to remember that a loving and compassionate God is one hundred percent aware of your child’s situation.
Elizabeth George
The Women in Black are Israeli Jews who meet wall in Jerusalem. They meet every Friday, the Sabbath evening, and pray. They begin by singing Kaddish for all the Israelis killed in the fighting in Israel that week. When they are finished, they pause and read all the names. Then, they turn again to face the wall and sing Kaddish again, this time for all of Palestinians killed in the fighting that week, and they turn when they are finished and once again recite the litany of the names of those killed.
Megan McKenna
My prayers, my tears, my wishes, fears, and lamentations, were witnessed by myself and heaven alone. When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which yet we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often naturally seek relief in poetry—and often find it, too—whether in the effusions of others, which seem to harmonize with our existing case, or in our own attempts to give utterance to those thoughts and feelings in strains less musical, perchance, but more appropriate, and therefore more penetrating and sympathetic, and, for the time, more soothing, or more powerful to rouse and to unburden the oppressed and swollen heart.
Anne Brontë
Exchange the bad habit of worrying with the excellent habit of trusting God.
Elizabeth George
The transcendental face of art is always a form of prayer.
John Berger
Prayer enables you to tap into God’s wisdom anywhere, anytime, no matter what’s going on.
Elizabeth George
Groans that words cannot express are often prayers that God cannot refuse.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Prayer allows you to tap into God’s wisdom anywhere, anytime, no matter what’s going on.
Elizabeth George
It is useless to say you have no time. There is plenty of time, if men will employ it. Time may be short, but time is always long enough for prayer. Daniel had the affairs of a kingdom on his hands, and yet he prayed three times a day. David was ruler over a mighty nation, and yet he says, “Evening and morning and at noon will I pray” (Psalms 55:17). When time is really wanted, time can always be found.
J.C. Ryle
VespersLittle Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,Droops on the little hands little gold head.Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.God bless Mummy. I know that's right.Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight?The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.Oh! God bless Daddy -- I quite forgot.If I open my fingers a little bit more,I can see Nanny's dressing-gown on the door.It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,And pull the hood right over my head,And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,And nobody knows that I'm there at all.Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day.And what was the other I had to say?I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?Oh! Now I remember. God bless Me.Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed.Droops on the little hands little gold head.Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.
A.A. Milne
As artists give themselves to their models, and poets to their classical pursuits, so must we addict ourselves to prayer.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Prayer and faith are bound together. Faith is the inspiration for prayer, and prayer is the expression of that faith.
Elizabeth George
Prayer is the expression of your heart’s sincere desires poured out to God.
Elizabeth George
Solace of Silencesurreal synapsesof a melancholy dronea dream per chanceshe dared not be alone...
Muse
He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands,
Ellis Peters
Prayer cannot be a substitution for action.
Mary Allsebrook
TeachingOne hour's teaching is better than a whole night of prayer.
Idries Shah
There was a patient who sat with her family in a circle around her, all holding hands. Sister Philomena asked if they would like to join her for prayers and they said yes, they would. They closed their eyes as Sister Philomena whispered the words and I thought this must be the nearest humans get to whatever God is, when they hold hands and listen.
Rachel Joyce
It is possible for a Christian to be perfectly orthodox and yet to be defeated, and to be living a defeated and a useless life.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
The opportunity of a lifetime needs to be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.
Leonard Ravenhill
When you stop worrying about your problems and start praising God for His magnificent power you will experience His peace.
Elizabeth George
When you love someone, you can’t help but pray for them.
Elizabeth George
The way to worry about nothing is to pray about everything.
Elizabeth George
Prayer may be a placebo for the disease of helplessness, but placebos can make you feel better.
David Mitchell
We should all know more, live nearer to God, and grow in grace, if we were more alone. Meditation chews the cud and extracts the real nutriment from the mental food gathered elsewhere.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The commencement of all labor consisted in the preparation of his own soul.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Most of us think too much of speech, which is but the shell of thought.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon