grace

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.

—Newton,John

   How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!ö I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace.

—Browning, Elizabeth ne¤  e Barrett

  There, but for the grace of God, goes God.

—Churchill, Lord Randolph Henry Spencer

But who is innocent? By grace divine, Not otherwise,O Nature! we are thine.

—Wordsworth,William

And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of duetime.For I amthe least of theapostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Billige Gnade ist Gnade ohne Nachfolge, Gnade ohne Kreuz, Gnade ohne den lebendigen, menschgewordenen Jesus Christus. Cheap graceisgracewithout discipleship, gracewithout the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

—Bonhoeffer, Dietrich

   Cum itaque membris his vilissimis, qu× pro summ× turpitudinis exercitio pudenda vocantur, nec proprium sustinent nomen, me divina gratia mundavit potius quam privavit, quid aliud egit quam ad puritatem munditi× conservandam sordida removit et vitia. When divine grace cleansed rather than deprived me of those most vile members which from their grossly depraved activity are called 'pudenda' ['shameful'], having no proper name of their own, what else did it do but remove filth and foulness so as to preserve unblemished purity?

—Abelard, Peter

L'homme n'est qu'un sujet plein d'erreur, naturelle et ineffa c° able sans la gra"  ce. Man is nothing but a subject full of natural error that cannot be eradicated except through grace.

—Pascal, Blaise

Ye are fallen from grace.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeleine's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory like a saint: She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven.

—Keats,John

And theWord wasmade flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

—Bible (NewTestament)

When you are old and greyand full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly how Love fled And paced among the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

—Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)

O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed Hisgrace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea.

—Bates, Katharine Lee

John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come.

—Bible (NewTestament)

The point is the seeingöthe grace beyond recognition, the ways of the bird rising, unnamed, unknown, beyond the range of language, beyond its noun. Eyes open on growing, flying, happening, and go on opening. Manifold, the world dawns on unrecognizing, realizing eyes. Amazement is the thing. Not love, but the astonishment of loving.

—Reid, Alastair

Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

—Bible (NewTestament)

   Farewell (sweet Cooke-ham) where I first obtained Grace from that grace where perfect grace remained; And where the muses gave their full consent, I should have power the virtuous to content; Where princely palace willed me to indite, The sacred story of the soul's delight.

—Lanyer, Aemilia

Grace isgiven of God, but knowledge is bought in the market.

—Clough, Arthur Hugh

My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Pray for the grace of accuracy Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination stealing like the tide across a map to his girl solid with yearning.

—Lowell, RobertTraill Spence,Jr

Que coisa e¤   a formosura, sena‹  o uma caveira bem vestida, a que a menor enfermidade tira a cor, e antes de a morte a despir de todo, os anos lhe va‹  o mortificando a gra c° a daquela exterior e aparente superf|¤cie, de tal sorte, que, se os olhos pudessem penetrar o interior dela, o na‹  o poderiam ver sem horror? What isbeauty, but a well-dressed skull that loses colour with the slightest illness, and, before death robs it of everything, the grace of its external and apparent surface is mortified by the years in such a way that, if eyes could penetrate within beauty, they could watch it only full of horror?

—Vieira, Anto"  nio

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

—Bible (NewTestament)

For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, thememoryof Macaulay, thefigure of Juno, and thehide of a rhinoceros.

—Barrymore, Ethel

   I mean grace under pressure.

—Hemingway, Ernest Millar

Their beer was strong; their wine was port; Their meal was large; their grace was short. They gave the poor the remnant meat, Just when it grew not fit to eat.

—Prior, Matthew

Where justice grows, there grows eke greater grace.

—Spenser, Edmund

When their lordships asked Bacon How many bribes he had taken He had at least the grace To get very red in the face.

—Bentley, Edmund Clerihew

Si je n'y suis, Dieu m'y veuille mettre; et si j'y suis, Dieu m'y veuille tenir. If I am not in grace, may God set me there; and if I am, may God keep me there.

—StJoan of Arc

Nothing is thought rare Which is not new and follow'd, yet we know That what was worne some twenty yeare agoe, Comes into grace againe.

—Fo, Dario

An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us.

—Book of Common Prayer

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace.

—Pound, Ezra Loomis

But Lancelot mused a little space; He said,'She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.'

—Tennyson

There is no event so commonplace but that God is present in it, alwayshiddenly, alwaysleaving you roomto recognize him or not to recognize him† Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the heavenlyand hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

—Buechner, (Carl) Frederick

We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.

—Book of Common Prayer

His motions all accompanied with grace; And paradise was opened in his face.

—Dryden,John

Poets like painters, thus unskilled to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

—Pope, Alexander

Never mind my grace, lassie; just speak out a plain tale, and show you have a Scotch tongue in your head.

—Scott, Sir Walter

When a novel comes, it's a grace. Something in the cosmos has forgiven you long enough so that you can start.

—Mailer, Norman Kingsley

For God's sake, hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five grey hairs, or ruined fortune flout, With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his honour, or his grace, Or the King's real, or his stamped face Contemplate; what you will, approve, So you will let me love.

—Donne,John

   Loving in truth, and vain in verse my love to show, That she (dear she) mighttake some pleasure of my pain, Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know; Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain.

—Shute, Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway

With little here to do or see Of things that in the great world be, Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee For thou art worthy, Thou unassuming commonplace Of Nature, with that homely face, And yet with something of a grace Which love makes for thee!

—Wordsworth,William

Oh heav'nly fool, thy most kiss-worthy face Anger invests with such a lovely grace That Anger's self I needs must kiss again.

—Shute, Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway

Though both Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed; For contemplation he and valour formed, For softness she and sweet attractive grace, He for God only, she for God in him.

—Milton,John

How lovely is thy dwelling-place O Lord of hosts, to me! The tabernacles of thy grace how pleasant, Lord, they be!

—Scottish Metrical Psalms

Towered cities pleased us then, And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend.

—Milton,John

The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise isgone! it isgone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

—Burke, Edmund

How splendid in the morning glows the lily; with what grace he throws His supplication to the rose.

—Flecker,James Elroy

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great Chieftain o'the Puddin-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy of a grace As lang's myarm.

—Burns, Robert