Surrender And Do The Work Quotes & Sayings

Choosing to write a play is some kind of surrender. I don't make an outline. I sit and work, and suddenly the door opens, and out it comes. — David Rabe

The first thing a man must do if he desires to be used in the Lord's work, is to make an unconditional surrender of himself to God. — Dwight L. Moody

You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either.

Perform every action with you heart fixed on the Supreme Lord. Renounce attachment to the fruits. Be even-tempered in success and failure: for it is this evenness of temper which is meant by yoga.

Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. Seek refuge in the knowledge of Brahma. They who work selfishly for results are miserable. — Bhagavad Gita

It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation ... Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances ... Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Dream big - dream very big. Work hard - work very hard. And after you've done all you can, you stand, wait and fully surrender. — Oprah Winfrey

When the resistance is gone, so are the demons. It's like a koan that we can work with by learning how to be more gentle, how to relax, and how to surrender to the situations and people in our lives. — Pema Chodron

But I'm terrified of giving up my career only to have the whole thing backfire in my face. What if I move down there and it doesn't work out?"
"What if you don't and you never know what might have been? Can you live with that? — Georgia Cates

There's a kind of theology at work here. The bombs are a kind of god. As his power grows, our fear naturally increases. I get as apprehensive as anyone else, maybe more so. We have too many bombs. They have too many bombs. There's a kind of theology of fear that comes out of this. We begin to capitulate to the overwhelming presence. It's so powerful. It dwarfs us so much. We say let the god have his way. He's so much more powerful than we are. Let it happen, whatever he ordains. It used to be that the gods punished men by using the forces of nature against them or by arousing them to take up their weapons and destroy each other. Now god is the force of nature itself, the fusion of tritium and deuterium. Now he's the weapon. So maybe this time we went too far in creating a being of omnipotent power. All this hardware. Fantastic stockpiles of hardware. The big danger is that we'll surrender to the sense of inevitability and start flinging mud all over the planet. — Don DeLillo

But if you could for a time wipe out all the poets and all their poetry from the world, then you would soon discover, by their very absence, where the men of action got their energy from, and who really supplied the life-sap to their harvest-field. It is not those who have plunged deep down into the Pundit's Ocean of Renunciation, nor those who are always clinging to their possessions; it is not those who have become adepts in turning out quantities of work, nor those who are ever telling the dry beads of duty,--it is not these who win at last. But it is those who love, because they live. These truly win, for they truly surrender. They accept pain with all their strength and with all their strength they remove pain. It is they who create, because they know the secret of true joy, which is the secret of detachment. — Rabindranath Tagore

There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. " ... but perfect love casts out fear ... " once we are surrendered to God (1 John 4:18). We should quit asking ourselves, "Am I of any use?" and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time. — Oswald Chambers

The purest form of prayer we can engage in is to feel peace: the kind of peace that comes when we surrender totally to what is, as is - in the knowledge and comfort that Spirit has it all handled and that it will all work out for the best if we just get ourselves out of the way. — Colin Tipping

And you, Edward? Is there something in this world for which you'd surrender your life and your soul, if need be? You need not answer - I saw in your face and in your heart, last night, as you bent over the bed. Good art, good art - both of you. I have found several sorts of good and original art in this world, enough to justify encouraging your Artist to try again. But there was so much that was bad, poorly drawn and amateurish, that I could not find it in me to approve the work as a whole until I encountered and savored this, the tragedy of human love." Cynthia looked at him wildly. "Tragedy? you say 'tragedy'?" He looked at her with eyes that were not pitying, but serenely appreciative. "What else could it be, my dear? — Robert A. Heinlein

When we surrender, we allow the universe to work its magic; we say yes to infinite possibilities; we trust that things will work out as they are meant to; and we give ourselves permission to let go of the outcome. This can be liberating, intimidating, blissful, scary, and a swirl of so many other emotions. But in the end, if we are true to our heart, life unfolds with magnificence ... and we get to celebrate — Davidji

Words are really a mask,' he said. 'They rarely express the true meaning; in fact they tend to hide it. If you can live in fantasy, then you don't need religion, since with fantasy you can understand that after death, man is reincorporated in the Universe. Once again I will say that it is not important to know whether there is something beyond this life. What counts is having done the right sort of work; if that is right, then everything else will be all right. The Universe, or Nature, is for me what God is for others. It is wrong to think that Nature is the enemy of man, something to be conquered. Rather, we should look upon Nature as a mother, and should peaceably surrender ourselves to it. If we take that attitude, we will simply feel that we are returning to the Universe as all other things do, all animals and plants. We are all just infinitesimal parts of the Whole. It is absurd to rebel; we must deliver ourselves up to the great current ... — Miguel Serrano

But I realize now that the art of living in the present is not so much controlling time, it's losing track of time. This is most likely to happen when we surrender to something we love to do: not because it's a demand, or an emergency, or an inability to do anything else. Seeking out what we love so much that we lose track of time when we're doing it - that goes beyond Einstein's theory and puts us into his life. He loved his work so much that he had to be careful while shaving; otherwise, he cut himself when a spontaneous idea struck. That is a hint of the timeless Now. — Gloria Steinem

You know you're surrendered to God when you rely on God to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda, and control the situation. You let go and let God work. You don't have to always be "in charge." The Bible says, "Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him. — Rick Warren

The grapes of my body can only become wine after the winemaker tramples me. I surrender my spirit like grapes to his trampling so my inmost heart can blaze and dance with joy. Although the grapes go on weeping blood and sobbing: "I cannot bear any more anguish, and more cruelty" The trampler stuffs cotton in his ears: "I am not working in ignorance. You can deny Me if you want, you have every excuse, but it is I who am the Master of this work. And when through My Passion you reach perfection you will never be done praising My Name."[326] — Saeed Malik

Overcomers are not perfect. They fail just like the rest of us, but they keep on getting up, keep on repenting, and keep on being willing to surrender themselves to Christ and letting Him, who is the only perfect One, work through them. — Nancy Missler

The conversation between Faithful and Talkative ends when Faithful challenges Talkative to show in his life the fruits of the truths he so easily talks about. This conversation exposes the matter, and the false pilgrim is soon separated from the true pilgrim.
To cry out against sin but to tolerate it comfortably in the heart is an equation that sums up the false pretense of Talkative. The work of grace in the heart offers proofs that cannot be denied. The eloquent Talkative simply lacks the experiential work of grace in his heart.
Again, Christians should be warned not to judge too quickly, since many Christians struggle with sin and surrender in the battlefield of life and often fail. The important thing to understand is that God will always produce a fruitful life in those He has conquered and occupies. The same Lord will disqualify those whose religion is only talk by ordaining that their life lacks the abundance of genuine good fruit while bad fruit abounds.
5. — John Bunyan

I turned over, and those big hands got to work on my back. I stifled a whimper in the pillow, because Marco's idea of a massage bore no resemblance whatsoever to the relaxing spa variety. There was no lavender oil, no soothing music, no hot towels. Just an all-out assault on cramped muscles, until they cowered in surrender and turned to Jell-O. — Karen Chance

A resistance stirs within us. Do we *want* our theology paraded thus? As natural men, no. We do not want it any more than we want the discipling of the Christian moral law, repentance, the painful call of self-surrender. but if it is the intellectual expression of that faith by which we live, how can our minds work Christianly without it? Wherever men think and talk, the banner will have to be raised. — Harry Blamires

Anarchism ... teaches the possibility of a society in which the needs of life may be fully supplied for all, and in which the opportunities for complete development of mind and body shall be the heritage of all ... [It] teaches that the present unjust organisation of the production and distribution of wealth must finally be completely destroyed, and replaced by a system which will insure to each the liberty to work, without first seeking a master to whom he [or she] must surrender a tithe of his [or her] product, which will guarantee his liberty of access to the sources and means of production ... Out of the blindly submissive, it makes the discontented; out of the unconsciously dissatisfied, it makes the consciously dissatisfied ... Anarchism seeks to arouse the consciousness of oppression, the desire for a better society, and a sense of the necessity for unceasing warfare against capitalism and the State. — Voltairine De Cleyre

People will buy bogus quick-fix solutions all day long, but few want to hear that the way to build a business or make money is to work hard for a long time and never surrender. — Sean Platt

Why would I marry? I'm not made to be any man's chattel. I have my work, which I love. I have my home - it is not much,
I grant, yet sufficient for my shelter. But more than these, I have something very few women can claim: my freedom.
I will not lightly surrender it. — Geraldine Brooks

The first work of revealed truth is to secure an unconditional surrender of the sinner to the will of God. Until this has been accomplished, nothing really lasting has been done at all. The reader may admire the rich imagery of the Bible, its bold figures and impassioned flights of eloquence; he may enjoy its tender musical passages, and revel in its strong homely wisdom; but until he has submitted to its full authority over his life, he has secured no good from it yet. — James L. Snyder

How then do we recover from depression and despair? It is only by crying out to God and accepting His helping hands that are we able to overcome our greatest sorrows. When we finally choose to lay down our wills and surrender our complaints, trusting in His goodness, we permit Him to mold and work into us the very image of His son, Jesus Christ. Through our yielding to His sovereignty and by declaring His right to have His way in all things, without the slightest need for an explanation, we enter into an even deeper and more intimate walk. — Cheryl Zelenka

John McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, to add his comments before leaving. McCloy said that all the talk of invading Japan struck him as rather "fantastic." The secretary asked, "Why not use the atomic bomb?" The meeting was once more called to order and McCloy's remark was discussed. Truman listened intently as the men at the table argued the merits of first warning the Japanese to surrender and then using the new weapon if the enemy ignored the ultimatum. The dialogue broke down because of one basic truth. No one in the room knew whether the device being readied in New Mexico would actually work. Without that knowledge, strategy was pointless. — William Craig

I always believe that one can't interfere in another's work. Once I start work on any film, I surrender myself completely and blindly follow the director. — Mahesh Babu

You have to surrender to the fact that you are of too many in a highly competitive field where it is difficult to stand out. Over time, through your work, you will demonstrate who you are and what you bring to the field. Just stay with it and keep working. — Lisa Kudrow

Travelling's not something you're good at. It's something you do. Like breathing. You can't work too much at it, or it feels like work. You have to surrender yourself to the chaos. To the accidents. — Gayle Forman

Young people need compassion and guidance, not obscure mysticism. Here are some guidelines for young people: Remember that you are always your own person. Do not surrender your mind, heart, or body to any person. Never compromise your dignity for any reason. Maintain your health with sound diet, hygiene, exercise, and clean living. Don't engage in drugs or drinking. Money is never more important than your body and mind, but you must work and support yourself. Never depend on others for your livelihood. — Ming-Dao Deng

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. — Vince Lombardi

I know well that healing comes-if one is brave-from within, through profound resignation to suffering and death, through the surrender of your own will and of your self-love. But that is of no use to me; I love to paint, to see people and things and everything that makes our life-artificial, if you like. Yes, real life would be a different thing, but I do not belong to that category of souls who are ready to live and also at any moment to suffer. I am everything but courageous in sorrow, and everything but patient when I am not feeling well, though I have rather a good deal of patience in keeping to my work. — Vincent Van Gogh

You don't need to retire to a cloister or the desert for years on end to experience a true dark night; you don't even have to be pursuing any particular "spiritual" path. Raising a challenged child, or caring for a failing parent for years on end, is at least as purgative as donning robes and shaving one's head; to endure a mediocre work situation for the sake of the paycheck that sustains a family demands at least as much in the way of daily surrender to years of pristine silence in a monastery. No one can know in advance how and where the night will come, and what form God's darkness will take. — Tim Farrington

Pray Meditate Be aware.Stay awake Bow Practise yoga Feel Chant and sing Breathe and smile Relax.Enjoy.Laugh.Play Create.Envision Let Go/Forgive.Accept Walk.Exercise.Move Work.Serve.Contribute Listen/Learn.Enquire Consider.Reflect Cultivate oneself.Enhance competencies Cultivate contentment Cultivate flexibility Cultivate friendship and collaboration Lighten up Celebrate and appreciate Dream Give thanks Evolve Love Share.Give.Receive Walk softly.Live gently Expand.Radiate.Dissolve Simplify Surrender.Trust Be born anew — Surya Das

It is not action or effort that we must surrender; it is self-will, and this is terribly difficult. You must do your best constantly, yet never allow yourself to become involved in whether things work out the way you want. — Eknath Easwaran

Sometimes it is best to stand back from conflict and allow other elements in someone's life to do the hard work for you. — Bryant McGill

The leaves do not change color from the blighting touch of the frost, but from the process of natural decay. They fall when the fruit has been ripened and their work is done. And their splendid change of coloring is but their graceful and beautiful surrender of life, when they have finished their summer offering of service to God and man. — Tryon Edwards

We must surrender our hopes and expectations, as well as our fears, and march directly into disappointment, work with disappointment, go into it, and make it our way of life, which is a very hard thing to do. Disappointment is a a good sign of basic intelligence. It cannot be compared to anything else: it is so sharp, precise, obvious, and direct. If we can open, then we suddenly begin to see that our expectations are irrelevant compared with the reality of the situations we are facing. — Chogyam Trungpa

Do work of all kinds with a mind that is void and to the voidness surrender all of the fruits. — Buddhadasa

But, sadly, our manly struggle to conform to the slave-like work rhythms of present-day custom has led to the nap being replaced by that costly and damaging drink, coffee. As paracetamol is to the cold, so coffee is to the nap: a way of riding it out, a sort of competition with one's own body, a civil war. When we feel tired after lunch, the socially acceptable solution is to dose up on coffee and ride out the tiredness, rather than simply take a nap. The coffee may produce a temporary perking of the senses, but irritability will follow, not to mention a sleep debt later in the day. You cannot win the battle against sleep. Don't fight, surrender! — Tom Hodgkinson

Thanks to demographics, that conservative push is not going to work-the United States is not going to be a mostly white country again- and because genies don't go back into bottles and queer people are not going back into the closet and women aren't going to surrender. It's a war, but I don't believe we're losing it, even if we won't win it anytime soon either; rather, some battles are won, some are engaged, and some women are doing really well while others suffer. And things continue to change in interesting and sometimes even auspicious ways. — Rebecca Solnit

Those who work the hardest are the last to surrender. — Rick Pitino

Whatever work you undertake, do it seriously, thoroughly and well; never leave it half-done or undone, never feel yourself satisfied unless and until you have given it your very best. Cultivate the habits of discipline and toleration. Surrender not the convictions you hold dear but learn to appreciate the points of view of your opponents. — Syama Prasad Mukherjee

Spiritual Work is not easy. It means the willingness to surrender feelings that seem, while we're in them, like our defense against a greater pain. It means that we surrender to God our perceptions of all things. — Marianne Williamson

Our job as writers is to be as curious as a child, to see things for the first time, and to never assume. We must always be willing to surrender our idea of the story to allow the larger story to emerge. We are seeking to understand the nature of things, the underlying forces at work. — Alan Watt

On the other hand, dogs eat with gusto, play with exuberance, work happily when given the opportunity, surrender themselves to the wonder and the mystery of their world, and love extravagantly. — Dean Koontz

Bomb-proof vault. Our diseases are our attachments, be they habits, ideologies, ideals, principles, possessions, phobias, gods, cults, religions, what you please. Good wages can be a disease just as much as bad wages. Leisure can be just as great a disease as work. Whatever we cling to, even if it be hope or faith, can be the disease which carries us off. Surrender is absolute: if you cling to even the tiniest crumb you nourish the germ which will devour you. — Henry Miller

That drinking thing, the night before an early morning start, I actually think it helps the productivity in some ways (as long as it's not spirits) it gives you that I don't give a fuck attitude, more relaxed, I'm getting away with it after all, I had a life last night, and now I may be hungover, but I had that secret world that you didn't have, and that you tried to take away from me, want to take away from me. But I still got that beer buzz. And I'll do it again, tomorrow night too. I'll never surrender. And when I'm working, I'll be thinking about it. Those moments of mine, truly mine, that you can never have or take away from me. — Robert Black

Resentment is like a drug. Once you pick it up, it will only get worse and worse until you surrender and do the work to let it go. — Samantha Leahy

All the romantic lore of our culture has told us when we find true love with a partner it will continue. Yet this partnership lasts only if both parties remain committed to being loving. Not everyone can bear the weight of true love. Wounded hearts turn away from love because they do not want to do the work of healing necessary to sustain and nurture love. Many men, especially, often turn away from true love and choose relationships in which they can be emotionally withholding when they feel like it but still receive love from someone else. Ultimately, they choose power over love. To know and keep true love we have to be willing to surrender the will to power. — Bell Hooks

That doesn't matter. Gorky's a vain man. We must bind him with cables to the Party," replied Stalin.3 It worked: during the kulak liquidation, Gorky unleashed his hatred of the backward peasants in Pravda: "If the enemy does not surrender, he must be exterminated." He toured concentration camps and admired their re-educational value. He supported slave labour projects such as the Belomor Canal which he visited with Yagoda, whom he congratulated: "You rough fellows do not realize what great work you're doing!"4 Yagoda, — Simon Sebag Montefiore

And a sensible work strategy might be: surrender to the task but not to the taskmaster, become absorbed in the work itself but never absorb the work ethos. — Michael Foley

Surrender is hard work. — Rick Warren

You can know everything that the books have to say, but ultimately it boils down to whether we do the inner work of devotion and surrender, whether we can put aside our own agendas and allow the spirit to move through us. — Marianne Williamson

They will tremble with awe because of all the good and all the peace I will bring about for them. Jeremiah 33:9 God does not minimize the things that break our hearts. He is not looking down on us, thinking how petty we are because things have hurt us. If we are so "heavenly minded" that we grow out of touch with earthly hardships, we've missed an important priority of Christ. God left our bare feet on the hot pavement of earth so we could grow through our hurts, not ignore and refuse to feel our way through them. So surrender your hurt to Him, withholding nothing, and invite Him to work miracles from your misery. Be patient and get to know Him through the process of healing. — Beth Moore

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. — Thomas Merton

The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us. — A.W. Tozer

Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience. We need to be lighthearted in what we do to avoid taking ourselves too seriously. It is a cheerful revolt against self and pride. Our work is jubilant, carefree, merry. Utter abandonment to God is done freely and with celebration. And so I urge you to enjoy this ministry of self-surrender. Don't push too hard. Hold this work lightly, joyfully. — Richard J. Foster

To deny one's self, to take up the cross, denotes something immeasurably grander than self-imposed penance or rigid conformity to a Divine statute. It is the surrender of self to an ennobling work, an absolute subordination of personal advantages and of personal pleasures for the sake of truth and the welfare of others, and a willing acceptance of every disability which their interests may entail. — George C. Lorimer

Think about the farmer," Akil tells me. "The farmer can't control and predict very much either. So why is that any better or worse than being on Wall Street? As a farmer, if there was a freeze that destroyed your crops, that might've stressed you, but it wasn't your fault. But as a knowledge worker, you're expected to be in charge of everything. And when things go wrong, it is your fault. The thinking is, you could have planned more, or you should have anticipated what went wrong. That combination of having a lot coming at you and of shifting away from physical work - which does help cope with stress - and not even being able to say, 'It's not my fault, I surrender to higher forces,' whether you believe it's weather or God - that's been taken away." * — Brigid Schulte

Spontaneity in the therapeutic work arises when the therapist can allow creative and authentic impulses to arise from moment to moment from the inner being, from the meditative quality within, from the inner emptiness, from the capacity to surrender to life. Then the therapist becomes less of a technician and more of an artist in the therapeutic work. It is then when the therapist and client meets in awareness without any barrier between. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Whose meditation is real and effective? Who can really surrender to the will of God? Only the person whose mind has been purified by selfless work. — Swami Vivekananda

Pocock paused and stepped back from the frame of the shell and put his hands on his hips, carefully studying the work he had so far done. He said for him the craft of building a boat was like religion. It wasn't enough to master the technical details of it. You had to give yourself up to it spiritually; you had to surrender yourself absolutely to it. When you were done and walked away from the boat, you had to feel that you had left a piece of yourself behind in it forever, a bit of your heart. He turned to Joe. "Rowing," he said, "is like that. And a lot of life is like that too, the parts that really matter anyway. Do you know what I mean, Joe? — Daniel James Brown

Two days after his twelfth birthday, a fortnight before his father was jailed for debt, Charles Dickens was sent to work in a blacking factory. There, in a rat-infested room by the docks, he sat for twelve hours a day, labelling boot polish and learning the pain of abandonment. While he never spoke publicly of this ordeal, it would always be with him: in his social conscience and burning ambition, in the hordes of innocent children who languished and died in his fiction.
Pete thinks we all have a blacking factory: some awful moment, early on, when we surrender our childish hearts as surely as we lose our baby teeth. And the outcome can't be called. Some of us end up like Dickens, others like Jeffrey Dahmer. It's not a question of good or evil, Pete believes. Just the random brutality of the universe and our native ability to withstand it. — Armistead Maupin

Why is it so hard to be human being? I wonder. Why do we have to surrender? And to what? What if you refused to believe in a higher power? What if you thought you were the only trustworthy higher power? I have done that all my life and I know it doesn't work. You are not enough. Your will is not enough. But God? God is a pagan dream, conjured out of neediness. — Erica Jong

Place your burden at the feet of the Lord of the universe who is ever victorious and accomplishes everything. Remain all the time steadfast in the heart, in the Transcendental Absolute. God knows the past, present and future. He will determine the future for you and accomplish the work. What is to be done will be done at the proper time. Don't worry. Abide in the heart and surrender your acts to the Divine. — Ramana Maharshi

How do you surrender when every cell of your being is screaming that your life is not working and that you need to do something to make it work? How do you surrender in that moment when jealousies, envy, doubt, rage, resentment all rise up inside you? You accept that you are resisting letting go; you accept that perhaps you are not yet ready to take your hands off the steering wheel; you accept this with kindness to who you are in the moment, being gentle and tender instead of beating yourself over the head with the 'Must hurry up, time is of the essence, everyone is passing me by' train of thought. — Kelly Martin

In every work out there comes a moment where you have to decide to keep pushing hard - through the doubt, discomfort and fear of the pain. You have two choices at this point - to push through and to mentally divorce your mind of the doubt, discomfort and fear or you can surrender. — Lisa Rainsberger

Believe our only hope for leaders to increasingly work in the way of Jesus, for the glory of Jesus, in the power of Jesus and under the direction of Jesus will be as they have passed through stages that help them learn the soul work of surrender, abandonment, contentment and participation. There simply are no shortcuts. — Dallas Willard