Welcome to Quotes for Quakers

We are a class of First Day School of Kitchener Area Monthly Meeting, of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Our project for the last while has been to collect and assign quotes that illuminate Quaker testimonies; we have chosen 8: Community, Equality, Integrity, Justice, Love, Peace, Simplicity and Truth. In the spirit of these testimonies, some quotes have been adjusted to reflect gender inclusiveness. We hope you will find these quotes meaningful. Please feel free to comment, or to suggest other quotes which we might post. If you think that a quote should apply to other testimonies besides the ones which we have assigned to it, please tell us.

He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.

 Samuel Tayler Coleridge

One person's simplicity may be another person's complexity.


Quaker Saying

If your heart is full of fear, you won't seek truth; you'll seek security. If a heart is full of love, it will have a limbering effect on the mind.




William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life.



William Wordsworth

Hatred ever kills, love never dies. Such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.



Mohandas K. Gandhi

A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused them in vain.




Jessamyn West

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.



1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.



Arthur Rubinstein

If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough.




Ann Landers

The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.



Bertrand Russell

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love.



Emily Dickinson

Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.



Ursula K. LeGuin

The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving person can be heard.



Henry David Thoreau

Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who recieves them, and they bless you, the giver.



Barbara de Angelis

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Dalai Lama

I believe that the unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.



Martin Luther King, Jr.

Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.



Advices and Queries

I saw also there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that I saw the infinite love of God.




George Fox

We need not think alike to love alike.



Ferenc David

Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward." Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relations with one's friends and enemies.



Carter Heyward

Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profundity.
Kindness in giving creates love.



Lao-Tse

There can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.



Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.



Margaret Mead

We didn't all come over on the same ship, but we're all in the same boat.



Bernard M. Baruch