Quaker Quotes & Sayings

Whether applauded or not, the New York Tribune maintained that Lincoln's bearing remained "deliberate and impressive" at this solemn moment, though Henri Mercier, the elegant French minister, caustically likened this plain American's appearance amid the "marble and gilt" of the Capital to inaugurating "a Quaker in a Basilica. — Harold Holzer

Quaker author Parker Palmer said, "A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside of himself or herself . . . lest the act of leadership create more harm than good."[5] — Lance Witt

He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebearers, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them. — James Reston Jr.

Pepsi is the second-most-recognized beverage brand in the world after Coke, and eighteen of PepsiCo's other brands, which include Tropicana, Gatorade, and Quaker Oats, are billion-dollar businesses in their own right. — John Seabrook

However, ironically, I was baptized Presbyterian, and went to a Quaker school for twelve years. — Brian De Palma

In returning I read a very different book, published by an honest Quaker , on that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called the Slave-trade. — John Wesley

The Quaker upbringing was not strict, but it was frugal. Extremely frugal. One was always encouraged to give away one's worldly goods. — Kathy Baker

My life had a tendency to spread, get flabby, to scroll and festoon like the frame of a baroque mirror, which came from following the line of least resistance. I wanted my death, by contrast, to be neat and simple, understated, even a little severe, like a Quaker church or the basic black dress with a single strand of pearls ... — Margaret Atwood

Paradoxically, life is worth living for those who have something for which they will gladly give up life. — A.J. Muste

I was a catastrophe at Science and Games, but the good thing about Quaker schools is that they encourage you in those subjects for which you show an aptitude. — Richard Rodney Bennett

However, I spent most of my time in a Quaker school. — Brian De Palma

The simple fact of the matter is that the Home Secretary has asked us to investigate what our Quaker friend chooses to call - for some strange reason of his own - "child prostitution". And whatever our personal feelings, it certainly won't damage our prospects of promotion if we come up with the result he desires. — Sally Spencer

What binds Buddhism, Sufism, and Quaker practices together is a belief in our interconnectedness; profound respect for others; being guided by a greater good beyond material possessions, status, and image; valuing silence and stillness of the mind; acceptance of differences; developing inner awareness of one's perceptions and motivation; commitment to service; and seeking guidance from within. — Charlotte Kasl

Dost thee?" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me. "I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker. — Herman Melville

With our sympathy for the wrongdoer we need the old Puritan and Quaker hatred of wrongdoing; with our just tolerance of men and opinions a righteous abhorrence of sin. — John Greenleaf Whittier

If I were not a Jew I would be a Quaker. — Albert Einstein

By background I'm both a Quaker and a Yorkshireman, which I like to call double jeopardy. — Jeremy Grantham

Her breasts were showing and Mr. Player, who was a very strong Quaker, didn't think that was quite proper. — Ian Fleming

America at a turning point! But in 1813 the United States and Nathan Jeffries may lose everything; blockaded, imprisoned, raided, massacred, Americans are feeling the wrath of British forces on land and sea. Nathan Jeffries, son of Captain William Jeffries and Quaker wife Amy, is also haunted by betrayal and a relentless, deadly enemy seeking to destroy him. Facing his own worst fears, Nathan is hunter and hunted in a violent world at war. — Bert J. Hubinger

A story is told of a Quaker man who knew how to live independently as the valued person God had created Him to be. One night as he was walking down the street with a friend he stopped at a newsstand to purchase an evening paper. The storekeeper was very sour, rude, and unfriendly. The Quaker man treated him with respect and was quite kind in his dealing with him. He paid for his paper, and he and his friend continued to walk down the street. The friend said to the Quaker, "How could you be so cordial to him with the terrible way he was treating you?" The Quaker man replied, "Oh, he is always that way; why should I let him determine how I am going to act? — Joyce Meyer

In those days, slavery was not looked upon, even in Quaker Philadelphia, with the shudder and abhorrence one feels towards it now. — John Sergeant Wise

Jefferson's views on religious liberty, however, appealed to many more moderate voters. New Jersey Republicans charged that Jefferson's enemies used religion as a means of assault "because he is not a fanatic, nor willing that the Quaker, the Baptist, the Methodist, or any other denominations of Christians, should pay the pastors of other sects; because he does not think that a Catholic should be banished for believing in transubstantiation, or a Jew, for believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."14 Still, — Jon Meacham

As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the "sacredness of human life". We were revolutionaries in opposition, and have remained revolutionaries in power. To make the individual sacred, we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And that problem can only be solved by blood and iron. The man who recognizes the revolutionary historic importance of the very fact of the existence of the Soviet system must also sanction the Red Terror. — Leon Trotsky

Next door but one is Quinlan Broddle, a Viceroy with a fear of gardens. So much so that he sold his garden to Virgin Atlantic and his erstwhile front lawn is now a runway where miniature helicopters and packets of crisps undertake sorties to 1940's Dresden where they have made several dozen unsuccessful attempts to rescue the Quaker Oats man, who is being held captive by the SS on the basis that his hair looks like ice cream. — St John Morris

In the context of Quaker worship, it is perfectly appropriate for any person in the congregation to speak a timely word from the Lord. — Richard Foster

As a lifelong pacifist, Quaker, and a gay man, I despair that gays and lesbians are expending energy trying to get into the military when they should be using that same energy getting rid of the military completely. — Ned Rorem

I'm teaming up with Quaker and PLAY 60 to encourage kids to eat right, stay active and do something outside for at least 60 minutes a day. — Andrew Luck

She was opinionated without being pushy. When choosing a book to read aloud, she would try to interest him in those spunky English heroines she liked so much. He proposed Thucydides, but he understood how she, being a Quaker, did not want to read about the Peloponnesian War. They came together on Henry James. — Barbara Wright

I Love Spirituality it reminds me of the Old Quaker Oats Commercial. "Nothing is better for thee than me"! — Stanley Victor Paskavich

My convictions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on truth as authority, rather than 'taking authority for truth.' — Lucretia Mott

Out here you better have a gun, and a gun in the wagon ain't good for nothin'. I believe what the old Quaker said, 'Trust in the Lord, but keep your powder dry. — Louis L'Amour

One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England. — George Orwell

How could I have missed the opportunity to pop pills with my sister who was purer than a Quaker? — Chelsea Handler

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. — Michael Perry

At heart he was a secret Quaker and football was pure violence. The coach was always telling him to "hit them harder." The coach wanted him to put opposing players "out of commission." He kept it to himself but wondered what the point of the "game" was if your intention was to hurt people badly. — Jim Harrison

The classical example of multiple inheritance conflict is called the 'Nixon Diamond.' It arises from the observation that Nixon was both a Quaker (and hence a pacifist) and a Republican (and hence not a pacifist). — Stuart Russell

I lit a candle in a Catholic church for the first time that afternoon. Me, a Presbyterian. I lit a candle in the warm, dark, waxy-smelling air of Saint Adelbert's. I put it beside the one that Mrs. Baker lit. I don't know what she prayed for, but I prayed that no atomic bomb would ever drop on Camillo Junior High or the Quaker meetinghouse or the old jail or Temple Emmanuel or Hicks Park or Saint Paul's Episcopal School or Saint Adelbert's. I prayed for Lieutenant Baker, missing in action somewhere in the jungles of Vietnam near Khesanh. I prayed for Danny Hupfer, sweating it out in Hebrew school right then. I prayed for my sister, driving in a yellow bug toward California - or maybe she was there already, trying to find herself. And I hoped that it was okay to pray for a bunch of things with one candle. — Gary D. Schmidt

I was influenced by my children's education in Quaker schools in the Philadelphia area. I experienced a spiritual awakening and became a Christian, was baptized, and joined a church. — Mike Berenstain

Mind the Light; come under Holy Obedience.
pg.33 in Prayer and Worship — Douglas Steer

By far the easiest grounds for gaining conscientious objector status in wartime are religious. You can be a brilliant moral philosopher with a prize-winning doctoral thesis expounding the evils of war, and still be given a hard time by a draft board evaluating your claim to be a conscientious objector. Yet if you can say that one or both of your parents is a Quaker you sail through like a breeze, no matter how inarticulate and illiterate you may be on the theory of pacifism or, indeed, Quakerism itself. — Richard Dawkins

My grandfather was a practising Quaker. My father was a nihilist. But nihilism, if you like, is the beginning of faith anyway. — Sebastian Horsley

I'm really a timid person - I was beaten up by Quakers — Woody Allen

The Quaker loves an ample brim, A hat that bows to no salaam; And dear the beaver is to him As if it never made a dam. — Thomas Hood

Physically as well as psychologically, Dickinson was the opposite of Adams: tall and gaunt, with a somewhat ashen complexion and a deliberate demeanor that conveyed the confidence of his social standing in the Quaker elite and his legal training at the Inns of Court in London. — Joseph J. Ellis

Aisles and aisles of absolventina, theopathine, genuflix, orisol. An enormous place; organ music in the background while you shop. All the faiths are represented too - there's chistendine and antichristendine, ormuzal, arymanol, anabaptiban, methadone, brahmax, supralapsarian suppositories, and zoroaspics, quaker oats, yogart, mishnameal and apocryphal dip. Pills, tablets, syrups, elixirs, powders, gums - they even have lollipops for the children. Many of the boxes come with halos. — Stanislaw Lem

Neither of my parents went to church, but they did everything that you needed to do to be Christian. That's something a Quaker would call an intimation of the divine. — Terry Pratchett

What to wear on a Minnesota farm? The older farmers I know wear brown polyester jumpsuits, like factory workers. The younger ones wear jeans, but the forecast was for ninety-five degrees with heavy humidity. The wardrobe of Quaker ladies in their middle years runs to denim skirts and hiking boots. This outfit had worked fine for me in England. But one of my jobs in Minnesota will be to climb onto the industrial cuisinart in the hay barn and mix fifty-pound bags of nutritional supplement and corn into blades as big as my body. Getting a skirt caught in that thing would be bad news for Betty Crocker. — Mary Rose O'Reilley

There has never been a time in my life when I felt that I could take a gun and shoot down a fellow-being. In this respect I am a Quaker. — D.L. Moody

I wanted to help people. I was raised by Quaker hippies ... True happiness comes from helping others, that's what was pounded in my head from day one ... So that began my teaching journey. — Greg Jackson

Was a book by Arthur Raistrick called Quakers in Science and Industry and I glanced through it for a few minutes, then carried it to a nearby chair and sat reading for about half an hour, so unexpectedly absorbed did I become. I hadn't realized it, but Quakers in the Darbys' day were a bullied and downtrodden minority in Britain. Excluded from conventional pursuits like politics and academia, they became big in industry and commerce, particularly, for some reason, in banking and the manufacture of chocolate. The Barclays and Lloyds banking families and the Cadburys, Frys, and Rowntrees of chocolate renown were all Quakers. They and many others made Britain a more dynamic and wealthy place entirely as a consequence of being treated shabbily by it. It had never occurred to me to be unkind to a Quaker, but if that's what it takes to get the country back on its feet again, I am prepared to consider it. - — Bill Bryson

I am a Quaker. And as everyone knows, Quakers, for 300 years, have, on conscientious ground, been against participating in war. I was sentenced to three years in federal prison because I could not religiously and conscientiously accept killing my fellow man. — Bayard Rustin

The Meeting is actually like the Gunpowder Meeting, or some of the earlier American Quaker MeetingsThe long house form is something that was traditionthat's what I started with as an idea. But then making this in terms of the sizing and the use that was asked for by Live Oak Meeting- I mean it's a very traditional form, except it's convertible. The top opens, and it makes a sky space where sky is really brought down to you; your awareness of it is made quite different. It was a little bit of a novel idea, that it's a roof that opens. — James Turrell

My mother was born in your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the time of Washington baked bread for George Washington's troops when they crossed the Delaware, and my own father was a slave. — Paul Robeson

We've got at least two other streams of that are filled with good, helpful material on meditation - the Catholic stream and the Quaker stream that are not primarily based on meditating on the Scripture. — Timothy Keller

Lewis Richardson wrote that his quest to analyze peace with numbers sprang from two prejudices. As a Quaker, he believed that "the moral evil in war outweighs the moral good, although the latter is conspicuous." As a scientist, he thought there was too much moralizing about war and not enough knowledge. "For indignation is so easy and satisfying a mood that it is apt to prevent one from attending to any facts that oppose it. If the reader should object that I have abandoned ethics for the false doctrine that 'tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner' [to understand all is to forgive all], I can reply that it is only a temporary suspense of ethical judgment, made because 'beaucoup condamner c'est peu comprendre' [to condemn much is to understand little]." (p. 200) — Steven Pinker

I give myself this advice: Do not fear truth, let it be ever so contrary to inclination and feeling. Never give up the search after it; and let me take courage, and try from the bottom of my heart to do that which I believe truth dictates, if it lead me to be a Quaker or not — Elizabeth Fry

QUAKER: Since God maintains direct accessibility with every human life and offers instant and uncomplicated guidance, the intervention of priests and ministers is unnecessary. The intercession of saints is not required. Musical chanting and pretentious prayers fulfill no need. God is not attracted by incense or ostentation or robes or colorful garments or hierarchies. CATHOLIC: You pretty well abolish my church. QUAKER — James A. Michener

What's the matter? Can't hear what I'm saying about you?" He raised a dark eyebrow at her. "Well, for starters, I hope this gray horse of mine reaches over and takes a big bite out of your thigh. And I hope it's painful as heck and you need my help, because I'll never again help you." He rested the hand holding the reins on his thigh, as though tempting fate. "You know, Aunt Ruth said she never met a man she didn't like, but she never met you. I'll bet you would try her good Quaker soul to its further limits. — Kit Dee

The kids go to a Quaker school. Their father and I believe a lot in community, social responsibility, making sure you give to people less fortunate than you. — Julianne Moore

So upright Quakers please both man and God. — Alexander Pope

If a man really believes that God once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion's sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. It always has been bad. This belief built the dungeons of the Inquisition. This belief made the Puritan murder the Quaker. — Robert Green Ingersoll

We may thus conclude that the kilt is a purely modern costume, first designed, and first worn, by an English Quaker industrialist, and that it was bestowed by him on the Highlanders in order not to preserve their traditional way of life but to ease its transformation: to bring them out of the heather and into the factory. — Eric Hobsbawm

Could the peaceable principle of the Quakers be universally established, arms and the art of war would be wholly extirpated: But we live not in a world of angels ... I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms, and settle matters by negotiation: but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power. — Thomas Paine

The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the contrary. — Herman Melville

I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail. — Thomas Jefferson

They are examin'd skeptickally. "Not from the Press, are you?" " 'Pon my Word," cry both Surveyors at once. "Drummers of some kind's my guess," puts in a Countryman, his Rifle at his Side, "am I right, Gents?" "What'll we say?" mutters Mason urgently to Dixon. "Oh, do allow me," says Dixon to Mason. Adverting to the Room, "Why aye, Right as a Right Angle, we're out here to ruffle up some business with any who may be in need of Surveying, London-Style, - Astronomickally precise, optickally up-to-the-Minute, surprisingly cheap. The Behavior of the Stars is the most perfect Motion there is, and we know how to read it all, just as you'd read a Clock-Face. We have Lenses that never lie, and Micrometers fine enough to subtend the Width of a Hair upon a Martian's Eye-ball. This looks like a bustling Town, plenty of activity in the Land-Trades, where think yese'd be a good place to start?" with an amiability that Mason recognizes as peculiarly Quaker, - Friendly Business. — Thomas Pynchon

I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service, must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's mind in this, and am inclined to wait for the spirit. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Margaret had close links with Geneva where she had spent some years as a student while her parents had been wardens of the Quaker Hostel there and where she had gone back as secretary to Gilbert Murray. — James Meade

You must be clever, Tracey to do these forgeries."
"She's not clever. I did them," yelled Frieda.
"You'll get five years."
"She did them."
From Halfpennies and Blue Vinyl — Robyn Quaker

Huzzah! Free Trade and Sailors' Rights! But instead American ships are captured and sailors impressed by the thousands into the British Navy, becoming slaves to the lash, while the United States has virtually no navy to back them up. Baltimore native, Nathan Jeffries, son of an American hero, Captain William Jeffries, and his Quaker wife, Amy, is haunted by the memories of his fiancee, his best friend, his enemy's woman and his betrayal. Chesapeake Bay is no refuge aboard his father's brig Bucephalus;facing his worst fears, he is chased and captured by armed privateer schooner Scourge. In a violent world at war, Nathan must break his most solemn promise to his mother. For Nathan and the young United States, 1812 would severely challenge rights of passage. — Bert J. Hubinger

I've tackled many challenges in my lifetime. The most satisfying ones were food related. Like the 2-pound burger at Fuddruckers that I had to devour in 15 minutes. Shattered it in 5 minutes and 46 seconds! Or
the Blazing Challenge at Buffalo Wild Wings: eat 12 blazing wings in 5 minutes. Killed it in 57 seconds! Quaker Steak and Lube's all-you-can- eat wings in one sitting? I may still hold the record in Madison, Wisconsin, for scarfing down 78. I'll never forget when 6 linemen and I went to a sushi restaurant during the time of the 2011 Rose Bowl in Pasadena. We didn't exactly take on an eating challenge, but we did get kicked out of the place when the owner ordered, "Go home now.
You've eaten eight hundred dollars' worth of sushi. — Jake Byrne

I've never attended a Quaker service before." "We believe that true religion is a personal encounter with God rather than a matter of ritual and ceremony, and that all aspects of life are sacramental. Therefore, no one day or place or activity is any more spiritual than any other. But we gather together at such times to discover in stillness a deeper sense of God's presence. — C.S. Harris

On landing at New York I caught the yellow fever. The kind man who commanded the ship that brought me from France took charge of me and placed me under the care of two Quaker ladies. To their skillful and untiring care I may safely say I owe my life. — John James Audubon

When the Quaker Penn kept his hat on in the royal presence, Charles (King Charles II) politely removed his, explaining that it was the custom in that place for only one person at a time to remain covered. — Arthur Bryant

Congress, our leaders, voted against a proposal to have a national seven day waiting period to buy a gun. I don't want to sound like a Quaker, but when you think about it, is a week a long time to wait? To see if a former mental patient is qualified to own an Uzi? Con one, will ya Congress? It takes three weeks to get a phone! — Jimmy Tingle

Men not living to what they know, cannot blame God, that they know no more. — William Penn

My stepmother appeared when I was about 9. My brother was sent off to an institute in Scotland & my sister & I were sent to school. As my stepmother's ideas were then wholly Quaker, mixed with a naive & charming innocence & a little snobbery, it was one dotty epoch on top of another. I always remained terrified of my father. — Louis MacNeice

I'm on my way," Ranger said. "I'm about ten minutes from Quaker Bridge. I'll call when I have her. — Janet Evanovich

Her Quaker instincts led her to apologize for wrongs not her own to minimize conflict. — Joyce Carol Oates

I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one. — Bonnie Raitt

Don't you wonder sometimes,' Ursula said. 'If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. If Hitler had died at birth, or if someone had kidnapped him as a baby and brought him up in
I don't know, say, a Quaker household
surely things would be different. — Kate Atkinson

I come of Quaker stock. My ancestors were persecuted for their beliefs. Here they sought and found religious freedom. By blood and conviction I stand for religious tolerance both in act and in spirit. — Herbert Hoover

Meanwhile, Quakers used outrageous behavior to draw more attention to their beliefs and provoke a response. A Quaker man walked into a Boston church holding a bottle in each hand, then smashed them to the floor; he shouted, "Thus will the Lord break all to pieces!" A Quaker woman stripped herself naked and paraded through the Newbury church during worship. Another Quaker woman paraded nude through the streets of Boston. — John M Barry

My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a Quaker. — Woody Allen

Whether in times of war or times of peace the Quaker is under peculiar obligation to assist and to forward movements and forces which make for peace in the world and which bind men together in ties of unity and fellowship. — Rufus Jones

Do you know that granola bars are apparently worse for you than chocolate bars? We've been had, Chris, had by the Quaker Oats man. — Laura Buzo

My activism did not spring from my being gay, or, for that matter, from my being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me. — Bayard Rustin

To you I speak with much hesitation about suffering. . . . But there is an introduction to suffering which comes with the birthpains of Love. And in such suffering one finds for the first time how deep and profound is the nature and meaning of life. And in such suffering one sees, as if one's eye were newly opened upon a blinding light, . . . And there too is suffering, but there, above all, is peace and victory. — Thomas Kelly

I was maybe 5 or 6, and my grandmother would begin sitting me in the Quaker meeting house. I asked my grandmother, 'What am I supposed to do?' and she said, 'Just wait, we're going inside to greet the light.' I liked that - this idea to go inside to find that light within, literally as well as figuratively. — James Turrell