Quaker Inspirational Quotes

Go into the London Stock Exchange – a more respectable place than many a court – and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker. On leaving these peaceful and free assemblies some go to the Synagogue and others for a drink, this one goes to be baptized in a great bath in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, that one has his son’s foreskin cut and has some Hebrew words he doesn’t understand mumbled over the child, others go to heir church and await the inspiration of God with their hats on, and everybody is happy.

He wasn't a great man, but he had a great life.

I will never cut it as a Quaker - I cannot find it in me to renounce all violence, not with two daughters under my protection - but I do love their silent hour, which in my case invariably evolved into a self-scouring meditation on the idea that the busy life is not the full life.

Life, not lectures, inspires us to change.

Having grown up knowing the formerly-mentioned historical figures are part of my family lineage, I was interested to learn that at least one, famed American psychic and suffragette, Amanda Theodosia Jones (of Puritan, Quaker and Huguenot heritage), was a self-proclaimed spiritualist. While aware of her inventions and business endeavors, I’d never been informed of her interest in metaphysics. Possessing a rather significant collection of her letters, poetry and other documents, it is perhaps my intimate relationship with this extraordinary individual inspiring my lifelong engagement with the psychic world. Indeed, in a recent dream, the spirit of Amanda T. Jones contacted me for reasons that will later be delineated. It is my ongoing contact with her and other spirit entities (including the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kuan Yin), in fact, inspiring me to pen this manuscript.

Having grown up knowing the formerly-mentioned historical figures on the bus are part of my family lineage, I was interested to learn that at least one, famed American psychic and suffragette, Amanda Theodosia Jones (of Puritan, Quaker and Huguenot heritage), was a self-proclaimed spiritualist. While aware of her inventions and business endeavors, I’d never been informed of her interest in metaphysics. Possessing a rather significant collection of her letters, poetry and other documents, it is perhaps my intimate relationship with this extraordinary individual inspiring my lifelong engagement with the psychic world. Indeed, in a recent dream, the spirit of Amanda T. Jones contacted me for reasons that will later be delineated. It is my ongoing contact with her and other spirit entities (including the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kuan Yin), in fact, inspiring me to pen this manuscript. Having dedicated her 1910 autobiography, A Psychic Autobiography to William James, (known today as the Father of Modern Psychology and who’d encouraged her to author it), Ms. Jones therein described her psychic abilities and subsequent expansion into spiritualism. Her developing interest in mysticism led her to be among those at the forefront of the spiritualist movement that, for a period of time before and after the Civil War, captured the imagination of millions. In her poetry book (Poems, 1854–1906), she detailed a family incident leading to what could be considered as a miracle.

I "know" there is a God, a living, loving God who works through people, prompting, nudging. A God of inspiration, or creativity; a God we can sense in the silence of a gathered Quaker meeting. One who holds a mirror up to us so that we can see our behaviour, keep our standards. One before whom masks, poses and postures drop away; one who knows us as perhaps only our parents knew us; there we are most truly ourselves.

Stats’s real name is Chris Odom and he’s a physicist and former rocket scientist who now teaches physics at a Quaker boarding school. This is his eighty-seventh day on the trail and he decided to stay in the lodge, near the halfway point, because he’s meeting his family soon.

First, If the command of Christ to teach all nations be restricted to the apostles, or those under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, then that of baptizing should be so too; and every denomination of Christians, except the Quakers, do wrong in baptizing with water at all.

Americans have always explored the mysteries of conversing with the departed. In Colonial Pennsylvania while prominent Quakers tried to convince members of their own denomination to give up divination by geomancy, palmistry, and astrology, they were themselves experimenting with not just communication with the dead but also, like their brethren back home in England, inspired by the New Testament, a few tried to raise the dead. Even less experimental Quakers owed much to the great German mystic Jakob Böhme, the Kabbalah, and Rosicrucian and alchemical undercurrents. Spiritual healing was a constant theme.

From the very beginning, the movement has been characterized by Quaker principles. The laws of the Kingdom, laid down by our elder brother, Jesus Christ, in His Sermon on the Mount, have been unqualifiedly adopted, consequently the movement has found itself opposed to the spilling of the blood of any man…” THEREFORE we, as a body of Christians, while purposing to fulfill all the obligations of loyal citizenship, are nevertheless constrained to declare we cannot conscientiously participate in war and armed resistance which involves the actual destruction of human life, since this is contrary to our view of the clear teachings of the inspired Word of God, which is the sole basis of our faith.

By the 18th century, the extent of human cooperation within the context of the market economy reached levels that the French philosopher François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778)—also known as Voltaire—could write, Go into the London Stock Exchange—a more respectable place than many a court—and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here, Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker. On leaving these peaceful and free assemblies, some go to the Synagogue and others for a drink, this one goes to be baptized in a great bath in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, that one has his son’s foreskin cut and has some Hebrew words he doesn’t understand mumbled over the child, others go to their church and await the inspiration of God with their hats on, and everybody is happy.97

The Holocaust was not the result of Christianity; it is important to state this categorically at the outset. As Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi pointed out, Christianity had an interest in the preservation of Jews, not their destruction.9 The history of Christian–Jewish relations is not one of unrelieved darkness.10 There were bishops who defended Jews at times of persecution, and popes who rejected anti-Jewish myths like the Blood Libel. And though there were massacres, there were also times when Jews flourished under Christian rulers. While the Holocaust was taking place, there were Christians who saved Jews, among them the members of the French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon who, under the inspiration of Lutheran pastor André Trocmé, gave shelter to five thousand Jews. Quakers and Jehovah’s Witnesses helped Jews to safety. There were Christian opponents of Hitler like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller. There were the more than twenty-five thousand individual heroes, memorialised in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, who saved lives. There were collective acts of heroism like the members of the Danish Resistance who saved most of Danish Jewry from death. And it is important to note also that many Jews were saved by Muslims during these years, a story told by Robert Satloff in his book Among the Righteous.11

Having grown up knowing the formerly-mentioned historical figures are part of my family lineage, I was interested to learn that at least one, famed American psychic and suffragette, Amanda Theodosia Jones (of Puritan, Quaker and Huguenot heritage), was a self-proclaimed spiritualist. While aware of her inventions and business endeavors, I’d never been informed of her interest in metaphysics. Possessing a rather significant collection of her letters, poetry and other documents, it is perhaps my intimate relationship with this extraordinary individual inspiring my lifelong engagement with the psychic world. Indeed, in a recent dream, the spirit of Amanda T. Jones contacted me for reasons that will later be delineated. It is my ongoing contact with her and other spirit entities (including the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kuan Yin), in fact, inspiring me to pen this manuscript.