Anthony Burgess Quotes

Real knowledge, like everything else of value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, studied for, thought for, and, more that all, must be prayed for.

Religion promotes the divine discontent within oneself, so that one tries to make oneself a better person and draw oneself closer to God.

Make the study of the Torah your chief occupation; speak little, but accomplish much.

Prayer is not to be used as a confessional, to cancel sin. Such an error would impede true religion. Sin is forgiven only as it is destroyed by Christ - Truth and Light.

God wants us to pray that we might have the courage to live before him in ways that are not natural to us.

When superior people hear of the Way, they carry it out with diligence. When middling people hear of the Way, it sometimes seems to be there, sometimes not. When lesser people hear of the Way, they ridicule it greatly. If they didn't laugh at it, it wouldn't be the Way.

Thus worshiping, serving, studying, praying, each in its own way squeezes selfishness out of us; pushes aside our preoccupations with the things of the world.

In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer.

Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. But when praying, we come "underneath," where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent.

Dear young friends, learn to pray every day: this is the way to know Jesus and invite him into your lives.

I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper in business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to attain much holiness who was not diligent about his Bible reading, his prayers, and the use of his Sundays.

If we would have God in the closet, God must have us out of the closet. There is no way of praying to God, but by living to God.

One of the best ways to practice the presence of the Lord is to thank Him all the time.

True prayer is a way of life, not just for use in cases of emergency.

Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.

Remember the words of Christ: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." These words are literally true, not figures or fiction. They were the outflow of the heart's blood of one of the greatest sons of God who have ever come to this world of ours; words which came as the fruit of realisation, from a man who had felt and realised God himself; who had spoken with God, lived with God, a hundred times more intensely than you or I see this building.

The only way to acquire spiritual knowledge and keep It burning brightly is to be humble, prayerful, and to strive diligently to keep all of the commandments.

The prayer of words cannot be eliminated. And I must pray them daily, whether I feel like praying or not. Otherwise, when God as something to say to me, I will not know how to listen. Until I have worked through self, I will not be enabled to get out of the way.

Books are only made so that they may point the way to a higher life; but no good results unless the path is trodden with unflinching steps!

Each of us is merely one human being, merely an experiment, a way station. But each of us should be on the way toward perfection, should be striving to reach the center, not the periphery.

Don't imagine that, if you had a great deal of time, you would spend more of it in prayer. Get rid of that idea; it is no hindrance to prayer to spend your time well.

Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is.

In the spiritual life the easiest way to conquer ego is to offer gratitude to God for five minutes daily. If you cannot offer gratitude for five minutes, then utter it for one minute. Offer your gratitude to God. Then you will feel that inside you a sweet, fragrant and beautiful flower is growing. That is the flower of humility.

The Christian life is not limited to prayer, but requires an ongoing dedication and courage born of prayer.

From people who merely pray we must become people who bless.