Gratia Quotes & Sayings

Some people have been in church for so long, been doing the "be a good Christian" thing for so long, that the very idea that they were chosen and determined for blamelessness before they'd started earning credit is very offensive. In our flesh, we tend to think that our holiness is the result of our spiritual elbow grease. We intellectually may agree to the doctrine of sola gratia, but we tend to live and act like we're saved by what Don Whitney calls "sola boot-strappa." That, however, is not the testimony of Scripture. — Matt Chandler

Is anything more needed to convince Catholics that the sola gratia, as generally understood among Protestants, in the sense we have seen that they give it, is perfectly in accord with Catholic tradition? And those Protestants who see, in the passage we first quoted, the very heart of their faith and life as Christians, can they seriously question that the Church does justice to all that is essential and positive in their "protestation," once they have read these other texts?

-The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, 1956 — Louis Bouyer

He printed business cards celebrating his shift. They read, 'Ars gratia pecuniae.' Translated, it meant, 'Art for money's sake. — Kliph Nesteroff

The stain of place hangs on not as a birthright but as a sort of artifice, a bit of cosmetic. — Elizabeth Hardwick

The moon cannot outshine the sun. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Longfellow has his popularity, in the main, because he tells his story or his idea so that one needs nothing but his verses to understand it. — William Butler Yeats

God Himself supplies the necessary condition to come to Jesus, that's why it is 'sola gratia,' by grace alone, that we are saved. — R.C. Sproul

Therefore, as St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, asserts, the archangel Gabriel called her full of grace: "Ave gratia plena;" because whilst to others, as the saint above mentioned remarks, limited grace is given, to Mary it was given in fulness. And thus it was ordered, as St. Basil attests, that in this way she might become the worthy mediatrix between God and men. For if the Virgin had not been full of divine grace, as St. Lawrence Justinian adds, how could she be the ladder of paradise, the advocate of the world, and the true mediatrix between God and men? — Alfonso Maria De Liguori

Art for art's sake.
[Lat., Ars gratia artis.] — Howard Dietz

Flora threw herself forward at the signal, and the men standing nearby cheered. Two of them ran alongside for a few steps, waving their hats. "Go, pig! Pull, pig! — Chris Kurtz

Love's an excuse to get hurt. — Conor Oberst

Home is a relative concept for me. I've been in Los Angeles 10 years, and I definitely feel at home here, but I also feel at home in a lot of places. I'm not too attached to anywhere, really. Home is where the people you love are at the time. — Stuart Townsend

I wouldn't say that I am one of the greatest dancers, but I am really quite good at what I do. — Lady Gaga

Benefits are acceptable, while the receiver thinks he may return them; but once exceeding that, hatred is given instead of thanks.
[Lat., Beneficia usque eo laeta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere pro gratia odium redditur.] — Tacitus

Rikiu was watching his son Shoan as he swept and
watered the garden path. "Not clean enough," said Rikiu, when Shoan had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikiu: "Father, there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground."
"Young fool," chided the tea-master, "that is not the way a garden path should be swept." Saying this, Rikiu stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn! — Kakuzo Okakura

In the absence of law, winner is the law maker. — Toba Beta

Thanks are justly due for things got without purchase.
[Lat., Gratia pro rebus merito debetur inemtis.] — Ovid

Perhaps the old view of 'Me breadwinner, you hausfrau' worked for our grandparents, when people obligingly popped off before boring each other to death, but it won't work any longer because we are living too long and divorce is needed today to do what death acomplished more economically before. — Merle Shain

She went as through a forest
the columns were furrowed like ancient trees, and in through the forest flowed the light, many-hued and clear as song, from the pictured windows. High up above her, beasts and men sported among the stone leafage, and angels played
and yet far, dizzily far higher, the vaulting soared, lifting the church towards God. In a hall that lay to one side, worship was being held at an altar. Kristin sank down on her knees by a pillar. The singing cut into her like a too strong light. Now she saw how low she lay in the dust ... Pater noster. Credo in unum Deum. Ave Maria, gratia plena. — Sigrid Undset