Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
God in his unending greatness and glory and man in his unending littleness, prepared for the worst but rarely for the best, prepared for the possible but rarely for the impossible.
Frederick Buechner
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Frederick Buechner
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: July 11
Autobiographer
Novelist
Poet
Theologian
Writer
New York City
New York
Carl Frederick Buechner
Men
Rarely
Greatness
Prepared
Glory
Worst
Impossible
Possible
Littleness
Best
Unending
More quotes by Frederick Buechner
Remember me not for the ill I've done but for the good I've dreamed.
Frederick Buechner
The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.
Frederick Buechner
I think most people, if I asked, would say, Yes, of course I believe. But I think for a great many of them it doesn't really make much difference in terms of either what they do with their lives or with their own inner well-being. They believe because so did grandfather, and that's the same church they've been going to all these years.
Frederick Buechner
ON HER DEATHBED, Gertrude Stein is said to have asked, 'What is the answer?' Then, after a long silence, 'What is the question?' Don't start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives. Start by listening for the questions it asks.
Frederick Buechner
Speak in your own voice and speak about things that you have in some sense witnessed, not just things you read about or have been taught about in seminary. To talk about the resurrection, think about those moments where in some way you have been resurrected.
Frederick Buechner
Laugh till you weep. Weep till there's nothing left but to laugh at your weeping. In the end it's all one.
Frederick Buechner
Five friends I had and two of them snakes.
Frederick Buechner
You can never be sure whether you are discovering the truth or inventing it.
Frederick Buechner
Go where your best prayers take you.
Frederick Buechner
Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you... Remember that the lives of others are not your business. They are their business. They are God's busineess... Even your own life is not your business. It also is God's Business. Leave it to God.
Frederick Buechner
Becoming a Christian was terribly helpful to me. I can't imagine finding my way without it. I think it can be very crucially important to ally yourself with some religion.
Frederick Buechner
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about anymore than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks. A good night's sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace.
Frederick Buechner
That's five friends, one each for Jesu's wounds, and Godric bears their mark still on what's left of him as in their time they all bore his on them. What's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds?
Frederick Buechner
Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength.
Frederick Buechner
Toleration is often just indifference in disguise.
Frederick Buechner
The world needs people who save lives.
Frederick Buechner
People are disturbed not by things but by the view they take of them. They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
Frederick Buechner
Not to love is, psychically, spiritually, to die. To live for yourself alone, hoarding your life for your own sake, is in almost every sense that matters to reduce your life to a life hardly worth the living, and thus to lose it.
Frederick Buechner
If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.
Frederick Buechner
The trouble with really seeing and really hearing is that then we really have to do something about what we have seen and heard.
Frederick Buechner