111 Inspiring Grace Quotes

In a world often focused on achievement and striving, the concept of grace offers a refreshing, contemplative pause. Whether viewed through the lens of spirituality, personal growth, or interpersonal relationships, grace embodies forgiveness, elegance, and a deep-seated sense of peace and compassion. The power of grace lies in its ability to transform situations, mend relationships, and bring serenity to our lives. In this carefully curated collection, we delve into the words of thinkers, writers, and leaders who have beautifully captured the essence of grace. These 111 inspiring grace quotes serve as gentle reminders and profound insights into the role of grace in our lives, encouraging us to embrace its subtle strength and transformative power.

1. “Father son oily ghost amen.” - Ginnetta Correli

2. “Butterflies are self propelled flowers.” - Robert A. Heinlein

3. “As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women are a crucial part of that. It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.” - Anne Lamott

4. “Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.” - Flannery O'Connor

5. “I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.I have also found that what I write is read by an audience which puts little stock either in grace or the devil. You discover your audience at the same time and in the same way that you discover your subject, but it is an added blow.” - Flannery O'Connor

6. “We are now living in an age which doubts both fact and value. It is the life of this age that we wish to see and judge.” - Flannery O'Connor

7. “There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.” - Flannery O'Connor

8. “Holiness is the strength of the soul. It comes by faith and through obedience to God's laws and ordinances. God then purifies the heart by faith, and the heart becomes purged from that which is profane and unworthy. When holiness is achieved by conforming to God's will, one knows intuitively that which is wrong and that which is right before the Lord. Holiness speaks when there is silence, encouraging that which is good or reproving that which is wrong.” - James E. Faust

9. “You are so weak. Give up to grace.The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore.You need more help than you know.” - Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

10. “You are really and truly and completely free. There is no kicker. There is no if, and, or but. You are free. You can do it right or wrong. You can obey or disobey. You can run from Christ or run to Christ. You can choose to become a faithful Christian or an unfaithful Christian. You can cry, cuss, and spit, or laugh, sing, and dance. You can read a novel or the Bible. You can watch television or pray. You're free...really free.” - Steve Brown

11. “I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.” - W.H. Auden

12. “And Grace calls out, 'You are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle-aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. You may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken or potbellied. Death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. But you are not just that. You are accepted.' Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.” - Brennan Manning

13. “Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever.If you reject the ragamuffin gospel and turn your back on Christianity, do so because you find the answers of Jesus incredible, blasphemous, or hopelessly hopeful.” - Brennan Manning

14. “The sinners to whom Jesus directed His messianic ministry were not those who skipped morning devotions or Sunday church. His ministry was to those whom society considered real sinners. They had done nothing to merit salvation. Yet they opened themselves to the gift that was offered them. On the other hand, the self-righteous placed their trust in the works of the Law and closed their hearts to the message of grace.” - Brennan Manning

15. “Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick', whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.'But how?' we ask.Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith. My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.” - Brennan Manning

16. “Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.” - Marilynne Robinson

17. “...stooping very low, He engraves with careHis Name, indelible, upon our dust;And from the ashes of our self-despair,Kindles a flame of hope and humble trust.He seeks no second site on which to build,But on the old foundation, stone by stone,Cementing sad experience with grace,Fashions a stronger temple of His own.” - Patricia St. John

18. “The problem with promises is that you've made one, it's bound to be broken.” - Bree Despain

19. “Grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world. It is a floating, cosmic bash shouting its way through the streets of the universe, flinging the sweetness of its cassations to every window, pounding at every door in a hilarity beyond all liking and happening, until the prodigals come out at last and dance, and the elder brothers finally take their fingers out of their ears.” - Robert Farrar Capon

20. “...there is therefore now no condemnation for two reasons: you are dead now; and God, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, has been dead all along. The blame game was over before it started. It really was. All Jesus did was announce that truth and tell you it would make you free. It was admittedly a dangerous thing to do. You are a menace. Be he did it; and therefore, menace or not, here you stand: uncondemned, forever, now. What are you going to do with your freedom?” - Robert Farrar Capon

21. “But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will need from here on out into the New Jerusalem: the ability to take our freedom seriously and act on it, to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. My repentance, accordingly, is not so much for my failings but for the two-bit attitude toward them by which I made them more sovereign than grace. Grace - the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors - makes all infirmities occasions of glory.” - Robert Farrar Capon

22. “All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy

23. “Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace.” - Thomas Watson

24. “Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life's sorrow with grace.” - Matthew Fox

25. “But I know how much you care for me. I read it in the ribbon. Lorcan sighed. Did you really need to read the ribbon to know that I cared for you?, he said. Really, Grace, don't you know me at all?I thought I did, she said” - Justin Somper

26. “Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.” - John Piper

27. “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.” - Charles Portis

28. “With each opportunity before me, God presented me with a choice. I could accept His offerings, His wisdom, His grace. Or I could choose to hold onto the pain, the anger and the resentment a little longer.” - Sharon E. Rainey

29. “Life is messy. Grit and grace come at us fast, side by side. Sometimes the grit becomes overwhelming and diminishes our spirit. What’s good seems lost and gone forever. This is a story about the pathway back to what’s beautiful, when the way back seems impossible.” - Sharon E. Rainey

30. “Aeschylus writes, "In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” - Madeleine L'Engle

31. “It is the tenderness that breaks our hearts. The loveliness that leaves us stranded on the shore, watching the boats sail away. It is the sweetness that makes us want to reach out and touch the soft skin of another person. And it is the grace that comes to us, undeserving though we may be.” - Robert Goolrick

32. “A sure way of retaining the grace of heaven is to disregard outward appearances, and diligently to cultivate such things as foster amendment of life and fervour of soul, rather than to cultivate those qualities that seem most popular.” - Thomas A. Kempis

33. “When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.” - Paul Hawken

34. “He sleeps with you?""Robert?"Stacey rolled her eyes at that. "No, Ghandi-of course Robert!” - S.L. Naeole

35. “We see that in the organic world, to the same degree that reflection gets darker and weaker, grace grows ever more radiant and dominant. But just as two lines intersect on one side of a point, and after passing through infinity, suddenly come together again on the other side; or the image in a concave mirror suddenly reappears before us after drawing away into the infinite distance, so too, does grace return once perception, as it were, has traversed the infinite--such that it simultaneously appears the purest in human bodily structures that are either devoid of consciousness or which possess an infinite consciousness, such as in the jointed manikin or the god.” - Heinrich von Kleist

36. “God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.” - John Calvin

37. “Some changes occur suddenly like a brilliant flash of lightning striking across a dark sky. These changes are stunning, exciting but can be quickly forgotten. Other changes happen slowly, gradually, like a flower blooming in early spring, each day unfurling its petals another fraction of an inch towards the warm, nurturing sun. These changes are as inevitable as nature running its course; they’re meant to be.” - Suzi Davis

38. “It is unearned love--the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.” - Anne Lamott

39. “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.” - Annie Dillard

40. “...pray for the grace to realize that no matter where you are, you are in the presence of the Lord.” - Ann Spangler

41. “…possessed of that indescribable charm called grace.” - Louisa May Alcott

42. “Religion consists much in holy affection; but those exercises of affection which are most distinguishing of true religion are these practical exercises. Friendship between earthly friends consists much in affection; but those strong exercises of affection that actually carry them through fire and water for each other are the highest evidences of true friendship.” - Jonathan Edwards

43. “The teaching of the sexual tantras all come down to one point. Although desire, of whatever shape or form, seeks completion, there is another kind of union than the one we imagine. In this union, achieved when the egocentric model of dualistic thinking is no longer dominant, we are not united with it, nor am I united with you, but we all just are. The movement from object to subject, as described in both Eastern meditation and modern psychotherapy, is training for this union, but its perception usually comes as a surprise, even when this shift is well under way. It is a kind of grace. The emphasis on sexual relations in the tantric teachings make it clear that the ecstatic surprise of orgasm is the best approximation of this grace.” - Mark Epstein

44. “Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.” - Philip Yancey

45. “Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.” - John Stott

46. “Then this must be my answer: We know that the attributes of God are infinite and it has always seemed strange to me that men have never given Him credit for common sense. It is hard to believe that He would have created so beautiful a world if He had not decided men to enjoy it. Would He have given the stars their glory, the birds their sweet song, and the flowers, their fragrance if He had not wished us to delight in them? I shave sinned before men and men have condemned me. God made me a man with passions of a man, and did He give them to me only that I should suppress them? He gave me my adventurous spirit and my love of life. I have a humble hope that when I am face to face with my Maker He will condone my imperfections and I shall find mercy in His sight.” - W. Somerset Maugham

47. “Even when muddy your wings sparkle bright wonders that heal broken worlds.” - Aberjhani

48. “In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. All the praises and thanks be to Allah, the Lord of the 'Alamin (mankind, jinns and all that exists). The Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. The Only Owner of the Day of Recompense (i.e. the Day of Resurrection) You (Alone) we worship, and You (Alone) we ask for help. Guide us to the Straight Way... The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger, nor of those who went astray.(The Qur'an- Surah Al-Fatihah)” - Anonymous

49. “Athena came to stand by her side. She reached out and ran a light touch over the read wrap. 'Nice dress."Grace frowned in disbelief. 'They're fighting to the death and you're admiring my clothes?'Athena laughed. 'Trust me, I pick my generals well. Priapus doesn't stand a chance.” - Sherrilyn Kenyon

50. “With its grace and carelessness, it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though [all] could be swept into a nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm.” - George Orwell

51. “Sam came around the back of the car and stopped dead when he saw me. "Oh my God, what is that?"I used my thumb and middle finger to flick the multicoloured pom-pom on top of my head. "In my language, we call it a hat. It keeps my ears warm.""Oh my God," Sam said again, and closed the distance between us. He cupped my face in his hands and studied me. "It's horribly cute." He kissed me, looked at the hat, and then he kissed me again.” - Maggie Stiefvater

52. “A guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul.' - Bread & Wine (day 5)” - Edna Hong

53. “The hand on my hair moved to my back, and I realized someone was singing softly. The voice was familiar, and something about it made my chest ache. Well, that was to be expected. Angels' songs would be awfully poignant. "'I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, when I met you...'" the voice crooned. I frowned. Was that really an appropriate song for the Heavenly Host to be--” - Rachel Hawkins

54. “This grace of God is a very great, strong, mighty and active thing. It does not lie asleep in the soul. Grace hears, leads, drives, draws, changes, works all in man, and lets itself be distinctly felt and experienced. It is hidden, but its works are evident.” - Martin Luther

55. “Kind of just existed from day to day, on weird plateau of feeling nothingness.” - Cat Clarke

56. “I wanted to grab his stupid ears and smash his stupid head against the door until his stupid brains leaked out. Instead, I did nothing.” - Cat Clarke

57. “Lorcan nodded, "It'ss a beautiful night," he said. "The stars have all come out for you, Darcy." He turned to go, then had a fresh thought. "Oh and Tempest, a word to the wise..." Grace was busily gathering up the edges of Darcy's train. "Yes?" she said, glancing up at Lorcan. "What is it Furey?" Lorcan grinned."Just so you know, I've put down good money on you catching the wedding bouquet. I trust you wouldn't let me down!" as he winked at her, Grace thought his eyes never looked so blue. They were eyes you could never tire from looking at- as deep and constant and infinite as the ocean itself.” - Justin Somper

58. “Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sun’s broken heart, power to restore the moon’s vision too.” - Aberjhani

59. “Ma was heavy, but not fat; thick with child-bearing and work. She wore a loose Mother Hubbard of gray cloth in which there had once been colored flowers, but the color was washed out now, so that the small flowered pattern was only a little lighter gray than the background. The dress came down to her ankles, and he strong, broad, bare feet moved quickly and deftly over the floor. Her thin, steel-gray hair was gathered in a sparse wispy knot at the back of her head. Strong, freckled arms were bare to the elbow, and her hands were chubby and delicate, like those of a plump little girl. She looked out into the sunshine. Her full face was not soft; it was controlled, kindly. Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding. She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials. But better than joy was calm. Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.” - John Steinbeck

60. “Some people are desperate because they don't know how to ask for His grace.” - Bree Despain

61. “... the pursuit of holiness must bre anchored in grace; otherwise it is doomed to failure.” - Jerry Bridges

62. “Gifts of grace come to all of us. But we must be ready to see and willing to receive these gifts. It will require a kind of sacrifice, the sacrifice of believing that, however painful our losses, life can still be good — good in a different way then before, but nevertheless good. I will never recover from my loss and I will never got over missing the ones I lost. But I still cherish life. . . . I will always want the ones I lost back again. I long for them with all my soul. But I still celebrate the life I have found because they are gone. I have lost, but I have also gained. I lost the world I loved, but I gained a deeper awareness of grace. That grace has enabled me to clarify my purpose in life and rediscover the wonder of the present moment.” - Jerry Sittser

63. “If a man were to sow a field, he could not excuse his neglect by saying that it would be useless to sow unless God caused the seed to grow. He would not be justified in neglecting tillage because the secret energy of God alone can create a harvest. No one is hindered in the ordinary pursuits of life by the fact that unless the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.” - Charles H. Spurgeon

64. “The light of love, the purity of grace,The mind, the Music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonised the whole —And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!” - George Gordon Byron

65. “I choose to suppress the initial categories I want to put people in - rich, poor, together, not together, druggie, yuppie, rocker, loser, winner, cool, uncool. I choose to remember that I don't know their struggle or their pain. I choose to err on the side of grace because someday I'll stand before God, and I pray He'll err on the side of grace with me.” - Jud Wilhite

66. “Love, Mercy, and Grace, sisters all, attend your wounds of silence and hope.” - Aberjhani

67. “I wanted a library like this...[] A cave of words that I'd made myself.” - Maggie Stiefvater

68. “Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?...Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

69. “By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

70. “Beware what you wish for, unless you have the grace to hope that your luck can be shared.” - Christopher Hitchens

71. “Beauty without grace is like a fish far displaced from the water and looking at this kind of beauty is like watching that fish die right there on the cement in front of you.” - C. JoyBell C.

72. “Elegance is a glowing inner peace. Grace is an ability to give as well as to receive and be thankful. Mystery is a hidden laugh always ready to surface! Glamour only radiates if there is a sublime courage & bravery within: glamour is like the moon; it only shines because the sun is there.” - C. JoyBell C.

73. “Suddenly, as one, all the Greys stop talking and gape at Christian. What? Christian is singing softly to himself at the piano. Silence descends on us all as we strain to hear his soft, lyrical voice. I've heard him sing before, haven't they? He stops, suddenly conscious of the deathly hush that's fallen over the room. Kate glances questioningly at me and I shrug. Christian turns on the stool and frowns, embarrassed to realize he's become the center of attention.'Go on,' Grace urges softly. 'I've never heard you sing, Christian. Ever.” - E.L. James

74. “We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.” - Madeleine L'Engle

75. “Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs. We are saved 'through faith,' but salvation is 'by grace'.” - Charles H. Spurgeon

76. “The burden God places on each of us is to become who we are meant to be. We are most fully ourselves when Christ most fully lives in us and through us. The mother shines brightest with her child in her arms, the father when he forgives his wandering son, and the artist when he or she is drawing attention to grace, by showing the pinprick of light overcoming the darkness in the painting, or the story, or the song. The world knows darkness. Christ came into the world to show us light. I have seen it, have been blinded by it, invaded by it. I will tell its story.” - Andrew Peterson

77. “It is not required that we know all of the details about every stretch of the river. Indeed, were we to know, it would not be an adventure, and I wonder if there would be much point in the journey.” - Jeffrey R. Anderson

78. “Certainly there is life and there is death, but even in death, if we look closely enough, we will find grace.” - Jeffrey R. Anderson

79. “Unconditional love is not affirming another in every decision they make especially when those choices are unhealthy. Unconditional love will risk offending in the name of genuine concern. It will risk relationship for the ultimate well-being of the other. To indiscriminately affirm the unhealthy choices of others is not love at all but perhaps the worst kind of fraud.” - Michael M. Rose

80. “It is a terrible smudge on grace and unconditional love to think that God simply winks and smiles at our poor choices; that God must rubber stamp everything we do or else He is unloving. God loves us unconditionally regardless of our performance - good or bad. When God challenges us or corrects us He does not stop loving us. In the safety of His love we can receive correction and challenge without shame or feelings of rejection.” - Michael M. Rose

81. “Grace saved my life; it can revolutionize yours.” - Jay Bakker

82. “God has certainly not called us to throw our brains out the window as an appropriate response to His Grace".R. Alan Woods [2012]” - R. Alan Woods

83. “I assigned him to help me trim the Brussels sprouts, but instead he kept trying to throw them away when he thought I wasn’t looking. “Brussels sprouts, Grace, really? These are our friends. Why are you doing this to them?” - Alice Clayton

84. “Between death and hell a bridge shining silver wings offers his soul hope.” - Aberjhani

85. “Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.” - Aberjhani

86. “What is "grace"? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are able to share in the infinitely selfless love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends. Indeed, outside of Him there is nothing, and whatever exists exists by His free gift of its being, so that one of the notions that is absolutely contradictory to the perfection of God is selfishness.” - Thomas Merton

87. “Please Julian,” she whispered to him as he slept beside her. “Don’t leave me.” - Sherrilyn Kenyon

88. “We are all the walking wounded in a world that is a war zone. Everything we love will be taken from us, everything, last of all life itself. Yet everywhere I look, I find great beauty in this battlefield, and grace and the promise of joy.” - Dean Koontz

89. “Sacraments are like hoses. They are the channels of the living water of God's grace. Our faith is like opening the faucet. We can open it a lot, a little, or not at all.” - Peter Kreeft

90. “There is no question of doing is purely on our own. But we must act. Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort. And it is well-directed, decisive, and sustained effort that is the key to the keys of the kingdom and to the life of restful power in ministry and life that those keys open to us.” - Dallas Willard

91. “The fallacy in Peter's mind was this: he believed his relationship was dependent on his consistency in producing the qualities he thought had earned him the Lord's approval.” - Lloyd Ogilvie

92. “If you're still, and if you don't hope too much, peace will come to you. It's a grace. But you have to choose happiness.” - Dean Koontz

93. “What really holds their marriage together are mutual respect of an awesome depth, a shared sense of humor, faith that they were brought together by a force greater than themselves, and a love so unwavering and pure that it is sacred.” - Dean Koontz

94. “God is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick out of that one lost sheep once he finds it again than out of the ninety and nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place. God is the eccentric host who, when the country-club crowd all turned out to have other things more important to do than come live it up with him, goes out into the skid rows and soup kitchens and charity wards and brings home a freak show. The man with no legs who sells shoelaces at the corner. The old woman in the moth-eaten fur coat who makes her daily rounds of the garbage cans. The old wino with his pint in a brown paper bag. The pusher, the whore, the village idiot who stands at the blinker light waving his hand as the cars go by. They are seated at the damask-laid table in the great hall. The candles are all lit and the champagne glasses filled. At a sign from the host, the musicians in their gallery strike up "Amazing Grace.” - Frederick Buechner

95. “Do you know whether or not you are in God's grace?Joan: If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.” - Joan of Arc

96. “For the Word of God is not received by faith if it flits about in the top of the brain, but when it takes root in the depth of the heart . . . the heart's distrust is greater than the mind's blindness. It is harder for the heart to be furnished with assurance [of God's love] than for the mind to be endowed with thought.” - John Calvin

97. “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” - Abigail Van Buren

98. “Watch carefully the children around you. In precious moments you will catch a glimpse of your Savior’s face. Listen intently and you will hear his voice. Walk gently among them; his footprints are all around you. Embrace them, for you are embracing him. Respect them, because they are sometimes God’s agents – exactly the kind of instruments he needs. At such times, only a child will do.” - Wess Stafford

99. “Forgiveness wasn’t ever easy, but a feat much more manageable when you weren’t the subject of its grace. Maybe I’d always be a broken recipient of grace. And in that musing, I found rest.” - Rachael Wade

100. “Hey, if you're going to say what I think you're going to say…wait, are you going to say it?” he asked, smiling down at me.“Yes, yes I think so.” I grinned shyly back.“Well, then I think we should say it at the same time, yes?” he suggested.“Count of three?” I asked. He nodded.“One…” I started.“Two…” he said, eyes twinkling.“Three,” we said together. We both paused, smiling hugely, and then I took a deep breath.“Jack, I love you.”“I know,” he said at the same time.Ass…“Ass!” I said, smacking him on the arm.“That was great!” he laughed.” - Alice Clayton

101. “We need days of failure because they help humble us, and through them we can see how God's grace is poured out on the humble.” - Elyse Fitzpatrick

102. “Besides," she says, eyes twinkling mischievously, "it'd never work out between us. I'm still holding a candle for Professor Haven.""How could I compete with a middle-aged English professor?""Well," she says, "you could do, but it'd be useless. Something about his receding hairline just drives me mad.” - seventhswan

103. “Cheer up! You're a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you're more loved than you ever dared hope.” - Jack Miller

104. “My past life is abundantly full of God’s mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

105. “The moments you are given are your true wealth. You don't need power, influence, or fame. The sunlight brings the power; the wind carries the influence. And as for fame, well, when you allow yourself to notice all those hands that have made your growth possible, you will also recognize what you have made possible for countless others — and how famous you already are. In this very moment, one of those others may be telling a story about how you helped them grow forward.” - Dawna Markova

106. “Elegance is timeless” - Habeeb Akande

107. “No matter how many sins you make or how slow you travel back toward God's valley, you are still way ahead of a person who never made a mistake and doesn't know what it is like to climb out of a pit of shame and rise above their temptations.” - Shannon L. Alder

108. “There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.” - Marilynne Robinson

109. “How I wish you could have known me in my strength.” - Marilynne Robinson

110. “Genius is a sovereign power; it forms schools; it lays hold on the spirits of men, with irresistible might; and it exercises an immeasurable influence on the whole condition of human life. This sovereignty of genius is a gift of God, possessed only by his grace. It is subject to no one and is responsible to him alone who has granted it this ascendancy.” - Abraham Kuyper

111. “0 true and heavenly grace, without which our own merits are nothing, and our natural gifts of no account! Neither arts nor riches, beauty nor strength, genius nor eloquence have any value in Your eyes, Lord, unless allied to grace. For the gifts of nature are common to good men and bad alike, but grace or love are Your especial gift to those whom You choose, and those who are sealed with this are counted worthy of life everlasting.” - Thomas A. Kempis