John Woolman Quotes

Humility is not cowardice. Meekness is not weakness. Humility and meekness are indeed spiritual powers.

The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The richer, the more beautiful, and the more powerful we grow, the more security, liberty, and happiness we will experience. And yet, the gospel tells us just the opposite, that the smaller we become, the freer we will be.

When it comes to power, God Himself is the power. God often uses foolish things to confound the wise. That is why people like me will ever be grateful to God. In terms of knowledge, education and name, I am nowhere - a neglected stone.

True love goes ever straight forward, not in its own strength, but esteeming itself as nothing. Then indeed we are truly happy. The cross is no longer a cross when there is no self to suffer under it.

God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

It would not be worth your while to reach the age of seventy if all the wisdom of the world were to be foolishness before God.

Do not be afraid to be holy! Have the courage and humility to present yourselves to the world determined to be holy, since full, true freedom is born from holiness.

The more humble and obedient to God a man is, the more wise and at peace he will be in all that he does.

We should not feel pride in our charity, austerity, valour, scriptural knowledge, modestyandmorality for the world is full of the rarest gems.

The highest wisdom adopts the humblest of bodies.

God grant that as our horizon of duty is widened, our minds may widen with it; that as our burden is increased, our shoulders may be strengthened to bear it. God grant to us that spirit of wisdom and understanding, uprightness, and godly fear, without which, even in greatest things there is nothing; with which, even in the smallest things there is every thing.

The wisest among us is a fool in some things.

People who are servants-humbly, honestly, and joyfully-keep getting revealed as the biggest winners. People who recognize and embrace their smallness keep getting bigger and bigger in God's eyes. It's the oddest scoring system.

The sage desires no desire, does not value rare treasures, learns without learning, recovers what people have left behind.

Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.

No one can sense his own weakness is at least a small temptation is not allowed to afflict either his body or his soul. Then, comparing his weakness to the help of God, a man comes to know its magnitude. But whoever does not know that he needs God's help, let him make many prayers. Insofar as he multiplies them, in that measure will he be humbled.

Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

The reward of renunciation is some good greater than the thing renounced. To renounce with no vision of such a good, from fear or in automatic obedience to a formula, is to weaken the springs of life, and to diminish the soul's resistance to this world.

The complementary movement towards divine love is growth in humility which is the acceptence of the reality about ourselves, our own weakness and limitations.

Suffering reveals to us the two things that ultimately matter: that we are weak but He is strong.

The first lesson in Christ's school is self-denial.

Sometimes God has to remind you that you're weak so that you can be set free from your "self-sufficiency."

Not to the swift, the race: Not to the strong, the fight: Not to the righteous, perfect grace: Not to the wise, the light. But often faltering feet Come surest to the goal; And they who walk in darkness meet The sunrise of the soul.

The only power a god can teach is the power of doing without happiness.

I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. ... When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. ... Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world.