Restfulness Quotes

Restfulness is a quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, life is alert. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

[T]he elements of holiness in us are these, each corresponding to some special aspect of God's holiness: deep Restfulness (ch. 3), humble Reverence (ch. 4), entire Surrender (ch. 5), joyful Adoration (ch. 6), simple Obedience (ch. 7). These all prepare for the Divine Indwelling (ch. 8). [ ... ]
It is simply impossible for God to dwell or rule when self is on the throne. [ ... ]
Just when we see that there is nothing in us to admire or rest in, God sees in us everything to admire and to rest in, because there is room for Himself. [ ... ]
Lowliness and holiness. Keep fast hold of the intimate connection. Lowliness is taking the place that becomes me; holiness, giving God the place that becomes Him. If I be nothing before Him, and God be all to me, I am in the sure path of holiness. Lowliness is holiness, because it gives all the glory to God. ~ Andrew Murray

But within ourselves we can experience a real difference between restlessness and solitude. What is that difference? It is the difference between living in freedom rather than compulsion; restfulness rather than restlessness; patience rather than impatience; inwardness rather than frenzied outwardness; altruism rather than greediness; authentic friendship rather than possessive clinging; and empathy rather than apathy.3 ~ Ronald Rolheiser

Ambition is your own yoke, not His! And the lust of wealth, the desire for power, the craving for human love - all that is a yoke of your own making - and if you will wear it, it will gall you. There is more joy in being unknown than in being known and there is less care in having no wealth than in having much of it. We often go the wrong way to work in seeking true restfulness and happiness. ~ Jennifer Dukes Lee

…It was this white garment of mourning which he still wore, the white mourning of surgical gowns so much more significant than black, since white is the colour of obliteration whereas black, far from being the colour of emptiness and nothingness, is much more the active shade which makes the deep and therefore dark substance of all things stand out, from the flight of despair whose magical blackness animates the blank parchment of the soul, to the supposedly sinister flight of the raven, whose croakings and cadaverous meals are but the joyful signs of physical metamorphoses, black as congelead blood or charred wood, but much less lugubrious than the deathly restfulness of white. Yet this desert whiteness did not rule out all subsequent possibilities, when it too would coagulate to form directions in blood and when it too would know the three congruences of putrefaction. ~ Michel Leiris

A life in Christ is a life of restfulness. There may be no ecstasy of feeling, but there should be an abiding peaceful trust. Your hope is not in yourself; it is in Christ. Your weakness is united to His strength, your ignorance to His wisdom, your frailty to His enduring might ... Let the mind dwell upon His love, upon the beauty, the perfection of His character.. ~ Ellen G. White

It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company
for he did all the talking. ~ Mark Twain

It remained dark. Outside the window, the balcony was grey. Suddenly, on its sullen stone, I did not indeed see a less negative colour, but I felt as it were an effort towards a less negative colour, the pulsation of a hesitating ray that struggled to discharge its light. A moment later the balcony was as pale and luminous as a standing water at dawn, and a thousand shadows from the iron-work of its balustrade had come to rest on it. A breath of wind dispersed them; the stone grew dark again, but, like tamed creatures, they returned; they began, imperceptibly, to grow lighter, and by one of those continuous crescendos, such as, in music, at the end of an overture, carry a single note to the extreme fortissimo, making it pass rapidly through all the intermediate stages, I saw it attain to that fixed, unalterable gold of fine days, on which the sharply cut shadows of the wrought iron of the balustrade were outlined in black like a capricious vegetation, with a fineness in the delineation of their smallest details which seemed to indicate a deliberate application, an artist's satisfaction, and which so much relief, so velvety a bloom in the restfulness of their somber and happy mass that in truth those large and leafy shadows which lay reflected on that lake of sunshine seemed aware that they were pledges of happiness and peace of mind. ~ Marcel Proust

Absolute green is the most restful color, lacking any undertone of joy, grief, or passion. On exhausted men this restfulness has a beneficial effect, but after a time it becomes tedious. ~ Wassily Kandinsky

The tragedy with velocity as the answer to complexity is that, after awhile, you cannot see or comprehend anything that is not traveling at the same speed you are. And you actually start to feel disturbed by people who have a sense of restfulness to their existence. ~ David Whyte

I'm in no hurry to do anything. I'll probably lie here for the rest of the day. (Great term, that, 'rest of the day'.) ~ Fennel Hudson

Sometimes I take my glasses off to see differently from other people. Colours and words swim into each other, meanings change on the page. In the distance, everything becomes a pastel blur. There is a kind of restfulness in not seeing well that the clear-sighted will never know. ~ Anuradha Roy