Fear Or Spirit Quotes

How you react doesn't tell a person about your character, as much as it does your fear or God's fire. Which is it? ~ Shannon L. Alder

We cannot always control or avoid what happens to us, but we can control what it does to our spirit. ~ Jewel

Jesus knew that many of his listeners believed the old wineskin (or way of doing things) was good enough. They were comfortable with their beliefs and practices, but Jesus hadn't come to patch up old religious traditions. He was offering a new garment, a new wineskin, a way of life that didn't abolish the old ways, but fulfilled them.

The teaching illuminated my own need to remain pliable before God. I realize that I must have a softer housing for my growing faith, one that can flex and change as God is at work inside of me. All too often I find myself clinging to that which is comfortable and familiar, rather than embracing the challenges that emerge with change and growth. Sometimes I shy away from people who have strong views that differ from mine, even though sharing a great conversation... could temper both our viewpoints and deepen our relationship. Why do I run away from strong opinions and potential conflict? Am I too comfortable and unwilling to change? Such a realization highlights the need for the Spirit in my life not just to discern and distinguish, but also to illuminate and invite me to move forward into the fullness of life with him." -Scouting the Divine ~ Margaret Feinberg

It is so, that when we are brought up short for a moment in our circle of activity, when we suddenly lose or find ourselves mistaken in some big plan, we must fall back on what is inside of us. It is the ultimate proof that the only real life we can live is the life which goes on in the tiny space within our skulls. Mind and spirit are what eventually save us from ourselves. They are what we possess without benefit of money or manipulation; they are the links between us and the rest of the universe. ~ Wilma Dykeman

Now, the whole world hears
Or shall hear,
surely shall hear, at the last,
Though men delay, and doubt, and faint, and fail,
That promise faithful:
"Fear not, little flock!
It is your Father's will and joy, to give
To you, the Kingdom"! ~ Matthew Arnold

So many people turn to spiritual thinking only when they experience difficulties, hoping that the sorrow or pain will just miraculously disappear. Usually, they find that the place of suffering -- the place where we are broken in spirit, when accepted and embraced, is also a place of peace and possibility. Our sufferings do not magically end; instead we are able to wisely alchemically recycle them. They become the abundant waste that we use to make new growth possible. ~ Bell Hooks

Daughter of Merrow, leave your sleep,

The ways of childhood no more to keep.

The dream will die, a nightmare rise,

Sleep no more, child, open your eyes...


Daughter of Merrow, chosen one,

The end begins, your time has come.

The sands run out, our spell unwinds,

Inch by inch, our chant unbinds...


Daughter of Merrow, find the five

Brave enough to keep hope alive.

One whose heart will hold the light,

One possessed of a prophet's sight.

One who does not yet believe,

Thus has no choice but to deceive.

One with spirit sure and strong,

One who sings all creatures' songs.

Together find the talismans

Belonging to the six who ruled,

Hidden under treacherous waters

After light and darkness dueled.

These pieces must not be united,

Not in anger, greed, or rage.

They were scattered by brave Merrow,

Lest they unlock destruction's cage.

Come to us from seas and rivers,

Become one mind, one heart, one bond.

Before the waters, and all creatures in them,

Are laid to waste by Abbadon! ~ Jennifer Donnelly

Freedom from fear and injustice and oppression will be ours only in the measure that men who value such freedom are ready to sustain its possession - to defend it against every thrust from within or without. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Some 'separation' zealots would expunge any vestige of religious observance in public schools. Many of the same anti-religious fanatics would like to wipe out of existence all church-related schools, by regulation or taxation, so that universal ignorance of the life of spirit should prevail. ~ Russell Kirk

Courage does not take over, it fights and struggles through every word you say and every step you take. It's a battle or a dance as to whether you let it pervade. It takes courage to overcome, but it takes extreme fear to be courageous. ~ Cecelia Ahern

A poem, novel, or play acquires all of humanity's disorders, including the fear of mortality ~ Harold Bloom

But you've been distracted for weeks, thinking of nothing but that green-eyed bitch. She's brought you to this."
Garrett.
She wouldn't know he'd been thinking of her at the last moment. She would never know what she'd meant to him. It would make dying so much easier if only he'd told her. But she would do well without him, just as she had before. She was a strong, resilient woman, a force of nature.
He only worried that no one would bring her flowers.
How strange that as his life was spinning down to its end, there was no anger or fear, only soul-scorching love. He was dissolving in it. There was nothing left but the way she'd made him feel.
"Was she worth it?" Gamble jeered.
Gripping the railing behind him, Ethan smiled faintly. "Aye. ~ Lisa Kleypas

GET MOVING

People are often scared of the word exercise. We associate the word with pain, and we think of it as a chore. (And it can be--who likes going to the gym at 6 A.M.?) If that's how you're thinking, then you need to change your psychology. I don't think of my body in terms of exercise; I think in terms of movement. Look at the actual word--I see it as "meant to move." As human beings, going back to the beginning of civilization, we've had to move to survive. We had to throw spears to hunt, we had to prepare land to plant seeds, we had to gather firewood. Our bodies are hardwired to move. Not even TiVo can rewire those thousands of years of DNA. This isn't a new idea, but it's easy to forget: your body is connected to your mind and spirit.
People say, "I'm miserable because I'm overweight" or "I'm overweight because I'm miserable," but these two go hand in hand. I know when I drink to excess or put poisons in my body, the next day I'm not going to feel happy or inspired. The body is the vehicle that can help you reach your dreams. Keeping it moving, strong, and healthy paves the way to overall well-being. You can't say you love yourself when you abuse yourself physically, and by not using your body, you're abusing it.
But here's the first piece of good news: you don't have to be in the gym to exercise. You just need to move--and keep moving. It can be anywhere, at any time. Sometimes I'll do push-ups during a commercial break while watching TV. Som ~ Derek Hough

Usually our minds are full of things that we are afraid will defile the purity of our actions. We have this impression of our minds being like a river and we feel like it's too polluted, we beat ourselves up over the fear that the mind pollution is going to spill over into our actions. This specific type of fear causes self-consciousness and self-doubt. The root of all this is the unawareness that we are, in reality, living and acting through our hearts and not through our minds. It is not from the mind that our bodies move and not through the mind that our hands choose who to touch, whom to hold onto and what to catch in midair. None of it is the mind. It is all the heart. And the heart cannot ever become polluted, not for a second. The heart can be torn, it can bleed, it can stop sometimes and it can even die. But it can never, it will never ever become polluted. You are your heart: the way you move, the way you love, the way you reach out to touch someone. By the contents of the heart the hands choose which threads to weave and which nails to hammer or to yank asunder. You need not fear. You are pure. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Q. Which is my favorite country?
A. The United States of America. Not because I'm chauvinistic or xenophobic, but because I believe that we alone have it all, even if not to perfection. The U.S. has the widest possible diversity of spectacular scenery and depth of natural resources; relatively clean air and water; a fascinatingly heterogeneous population living in relative harmony; safe streets; few deadly communicable diseases; a functioning democracy; a superlative Constitution; equal opportunity in most spheres of life; an increasing tolerance of different races, religions, and sexual preferences; equal justice under the law; a free and vibrant press; a world-class culture in books,films, theater, museums, dance, and popular music; the cuisines of every nation; an increasing attention to health and good diet; an abiding entrepreneurial spirit; and peace at home. ~ Albert Podell

Indeed, an astoundingly small proportion of arguments 'for free speech' and 'against censorship' or 'banning' are, in fact, about free speech, censorship or banning. It is depressing to have to point out, yet again, that there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say. Being asked to apologise for saying something unconscionable is not the same as being stripped of the legal right to say it. It's really not very f-cking complicated. Cry "free speech" in such contexts, you are demanding the right to speak any bilge you wish without apology or fear of comeback. You are demanding not legal rights but an end to debate about and criticism of what you say. When did bigotry get so needy? This assertive & idiotic failure to understand that juridical permissibility backed up by the state is not the horizon of politics or morality is absurdly resilient. ~ China Mieville

When God intends a mercy for his people, he stirs up the spirit of prayer in them. Fervency unites the soul and directs the thoughts to the work at hand. It will not allow diversions and denies all foreign thoughts seeking to intrude. Pray fervently or you do nothing. Cold praying is no more prayer than a painting of fire is fire. How can prayers that do not even warm your own heart move God's? A fervent prayer will never find a cold reception with God. Elijah's prayer called fire down from heaven because it carried fire up to heaven. ~ William Gurnall

The child, who is decked with prince's robes and who has jewelled chains round his neck loses all pleasure in his play; his dress hampers him at every step. In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps himself from the world, and is afraid even to move. Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keep one shut off from the healthful dust of the earth, if it rob one of the right of entrance to the great fair of common human life. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

The man was a lunatic. I didn't care. He was possessive and violent. I still didn't care. He was jealous and rude, and he took what he wanted without fear or regret. And I didn't fucking care. ~ R.J. Lewis

The Apostle Paul says that we are sealed in the Spirit (cf. Eph. 1:13); since we have in the Son the image of the Father, and in the Spirit the seal of the Son. Let us, then, sealed by this Trinity, take more diligent heed, lest either levity of character or the deceit of any unfaithfulness unseal the pledge which we have received in our hearts. ~ Ambrose

As a boy holding to a post or a pillar whirls about it with headlong speed without any fear or falling, so perform your worldly duties, fixing your hold firmly upon God, and you will be free from danger. ~ Ramakrishna

Love, intensity, value, passion, rejection, hope, care, failure, joy. What life throws at us never makes sense. Thinks we're at life's dispense. How long we should try to change ourselves. The weight of death, the weight of fear. The burden of stress, the pain is here. Never to know, never to guess, never to know, how much mess. Do not show care, do not have love, do not feel joy, or you may change. ~ Esther Earl

In order to change, you need to stop fearing the change but instead fear the results of NOT trying to change. What happens if you don't jump? What happens if you stay where you are right now? Isn't the greatest risk the risk of doing nothing?
Exist or risk. Dream or do.
Fear not changing, and you will change your life. ~ Rachel Marie Martin

Don't talk yourself into falling in love with someone. Either, you are in love or you are not. True love is not a choice. It is something you know in your heart when all guilt, doubt and fear are removed. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Changing what you don't like about yourself can be empowering, and that's not a bad thing. Feeling secure enough to own what is weak and missing from either your body, mind or spirit and to commit to action to change it is a good thing. ~ Teri Hatcher

You have the moral courage to run a long way, in the rain, in the cold, if you have the strength to keep going until the end, to give it all you have and to reach your goal, then you're capable of writing a book. Never let fear or fatigue stop you. On the contrary: You should use them to help you keep going. ~ Joel Dicker

Nothing happened. And everything did. Your whole life you can be told something is wrong and so you believe it. Why should you question it? But then slowly seeds are planted inside of you, one by one, by a touch or a look or a day skateboarding in a park, and they start to burst out of old hulls shells and they start to sprout. And pretty soon there are so many of them. They are named Love and Trust and Kindness and Joy and Desire and Wonder and Spirit and Soulmate. They grow into a garden so dense and thick that it starts to invade your brain where the old things you were once told are dying. ~ Francesca Lia Block

These men deceive themselves," said Roger Chillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for God's service - these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement! Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better - can be more for God's glory, or man' welfare - than God's own truth? Trust me, such men deceive themselves!" "It ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Words like passion and ecstasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what's on the other side, and everyone has a story to tell os a woman or a brothel or an opium night or a war. We fear it. We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear? Many of us cling to our fears, doubts, self-loathing or hatred because there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain. It seems safer to embrace what we know than to let go of it for fear of the unknown.
(Narcotics Anonymous Book/page 33) ~ Narcotics Anonymous

No blast of air or fire of sun Puts out the light whereby we run With girdled loins our lamplit race, And each from each takes heart of grace And spirit till his turn be done. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

She merely wiped the floor with paper towels and said nothing, brushing her free hand against my shoulder blade - my shoulder blade! - as she carried the soaked paper to the trash can, never holding me fast, refraining not out of lack of humanity but out of fear of being drawn into a request for further tenderness, a request that could only bring her face-to-face with some central revulsion, a revulsion of her husband or herself or both, a revulsion that had come from nowhere, or from her, or perhaps from something I'd done or failed to do, who knew, she didn't want to know, it was too great a disappointment, far better to get on with the chores, with the baby, with the work, far better to leave me to my own devices, as they say, to leave me to resign myself to certain motifs, to leave me to disappear guiltily into a hole of my own digging. When the time came to stop her from leaving, I did not know what to think or wish for, her husband who was now an abandoner, a hole-dweller, a leaver who had left her to fend for herself, as she said, who'd failed to provide her with the support and intimacy she needed, she complained, who was lacking some fundamental wherewithal, who no longer wanted her, who beneath his scrupulous marital motions was angry, whose sentiments had decayed into a mere sense of responsibility, a husband who, when she shouted, "I don't need to be provided for! I'm a lawyer! I make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year! I need to be loved!" had silently ~ Joseph O'Neill

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. ~ Roald Dahl

Cancer. The word meant the same to me as tsunami or piranha. I had never seen them; I wasn't even quite sure what they were, but I knew they were bad and I knew in many cases they were deadly. ~ Natalie Palmer

The Qur'ān has not merely been revealed in Arabic: it has been revealed in eloquent Arabic. The language is clear and cogent, and there is no vagueness in it; every word is unambiguous and every style adopted is well known to its addressees. The Qur'ān says:

The faithful Spirit has brought it down into your heart [O Prophet] that you
may become a warner [for people] in eloquent Arabic. (26:193-195)

In the form of an Arabic Qur'ān, free from any ambiguity that they may save themselves [from punishment]. (39:28)

This is an obvious reality about the Qur'ān. If this premise is accepted, then it must be conceded that no word used or style adopted by the Qur'ān is rare or unknown (shādh). Its words and styles are well known and conventionally understood by its addressees. No aspect of the language has any peculiarity or rarity in it. ~ Javed Ahmad Ghamidi

I dream a world in no one feels the need for or fear of predatory behavior, in which each of us walks with the knowledge of how beautiful - and valuable - is each human life. ~ Jacqueline Novogratz

God pulled back and gripped a handful of Day's hair, pulling so that he was looking up at him. God bent down and gently grazed his soft lips across his. Day's body vibrated from the sensual feeling. God rubbed his face all over Day's as if he were a cat marking him with his scent. God's grip tightened in his hair and he moaned again. Day could feel God's body trembling and Day didn't know at that moment if the shaking was from residual fear or need, so he didn't move as he let his lover do what he needed to do. God ~ A.E. Via

To help break the cycle of domestic violence, we must allow survivors to take time off from work without fear of losing their job, to go to court, to see a doctor or to find a safe place to live. ~ Lucille Roybal-Allard