William Barclay Quotes

Your inner voice is the voice of divinity. To hear it, we need to be in solitude, even in crowded places.

Be still; quietly remember the presence of and within yourself, and you will know, without thinking, that while all around you everything changes, within you lives something unchanging.

I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world-present and in awe.

One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is time alone with God.

He that lives a prayerless life, lives without God in the world.

Most of us are far too busy for our own spiritual good.

When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of it, I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively no distraction. My whole life becomes a prayer. My whole silence is full of prayer. The world of silence in which I am immersed contributes to my prayer.

We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Nothing in or of this world measures up to the simple pleasure of experiencing the presence of God.

The essence of meditation is a period of time set aside to contemplate the Lord, listen to Him, and allow Him to permeate our spirits.

Lift up your hearts to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company; the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; He is nearer to us than we are aware.

Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing. . . . If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities.

Staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

Speed damages our souls because living fast consumes every ounce of our energy. Speed has a deafening roar that drowns our the whispering voices of our souls and leaves Jesus as a diminishing speck in the rearview mirror.

You can only hear clearly when you sit quietly, when you give your attention. Nor can you have order if you are not free to watch, if you are not free to listen, if you are not free to be considerate. This problem of freedom and order is one of the most difficult and urgent problems in life. It is a very complex problem. It needs to be thought over much more than mathematics, geography, or history.

It is important to be still and listen and follow the Spirit.

There are a whole lot of people who are so freakin' busy—they've so cluttered up their lives—they're at their wits' end. And if they'd only just stop for a minute, they could hear the God of the universe whisper to them, “I love you.

If I could prescribe only one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence.

Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our own lives in relation to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence.

This is the tragedy and woe of the hour--that we neglect the most important One who could possibly be in our midst--the Holy Spirit of God. Then, in order to make up for His absence, we have to do something to keep up our own spirits.

When you pray, remember that you are not praying to a distant God, but to the God that dwells within you. Don't just speak the words; feel what they mean in your life. Don't pray from your lips, but from your heart. Your prayers aren't for God, they are for you, to remind you of the presence of the Holy Spirit within you. When you say "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done," remember that you are loved and protected. God has planned greater things for us than we can imagine. The more we maintain an awareness of God's unchanging love, the safer and more at home we will feel in the world.

It is in that inner peace and stillness that things begin to happen, and it was in that peace and stillness that I began to hear God's voice.

Stillness is the altar of spirit.

Those who think to reach God by running away from the world, when and where do they expect to meet him? We are reaching him here in this very spot, now at this very moment.