Quotes on Meaning & Identity

Christian quotes on Meaning & Identity — with author, dates and source, from two millennia of Christian thought.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

Augustine of Hippo

Jesus calls us not to a new religion, but to life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.

Henri Nouwen

To love a person means to see them as God meant them to be.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Inner dignity remains, even when performance capacity and social role decline.

Anselm Grün

There is a God, and I'm not him.

John Mark Comer

God has put eternity into our hearts and filled it with longing.

John Piper

Prayers are tools not for doing or getting, but for being and becoming.

Eugene Peterson

God loves to use people whom others believe are unqualified.

Craig Groeschel

Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Above all, do not forget the duty to love yourself.

Søren Kierkegaard

The soul is the inner place where man touches the Divine.

Anselm Grün

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

C.S. Lewis

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival.

C.S. Lewis

Jenny, God has made me for a purpose – for China; but He has also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure

Eric Liddell

When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.

Henri Nouwen

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

Frederick Buechner

To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.

Tim Keller

The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

God has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created.

C.S. Lewis

The only important thing in life are the traces of love we leave behind when we go.

Albert Schweitzer

God loves you unconditionally, as you are, and not as you should be — for you will never become as you should be.

Brennan Manning

I am called to do something or to be something for which no one else is called. I have a place in God's plan on God's earth that no one else has. Whether I am rich or poor, despised or esteemed by others, God knows me and calls me by my name.

John Henry Newman

Accept the fact that you are accepted.

Paul Tillich

God does not love us because we are so valuable, but we are so valuable because God loves us.

Helmut Thielicke

God doesn’t love us because of our worth, we are of worth because God loves us.

Martin Luther

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself one way or the other at all.

William Temple

In Christianity, the moment we believe, God imputes Christ’s perfect performance to us as if it were our own, and adopts us into His family. In other words, God can say to us just as He once said to Christ, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Tim Keller

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because He shows us both God and our own wretchedness.

Blaise Pascal

Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

C.S. Lewis

I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.

Mother Teresa

I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but through Jesus Christ I'm more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope.

Alistair Begg

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.

D. Elton Trueblood

Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you're nobody.

Martin Luther King Jr.

He who dares loses his footing for a moment; he who does not dare loses himself.

Søren Kierkegaard

All of human unhappiness comes from not being able to stay quietly in a room.

Blaise Pascal

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.

Blaise Pascal

There are no ordinary people; every neighbor carries eternal significance.

C.S. Lewis

There is fulfilled life despite many unfulfilled wishes.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

People quoted here

Augustine of Hippo, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Henri Nouwen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anselm Grün, John Mark Comer, John Piper, Eugene Peterson, Craig Groeschel, Søren Kierkegaard, C.S. Lewis, Eric Liddell

Related

God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit, Grace & Redemption, The Bible & the Word of God, Doubt & Hard Questions, Suffering & the Question of God, Eternity & Hope Beyond Death, Fear & Anxiety, Grief & Comfort, Illness & Weakness, Loneliness & Abandonment, Time & Transience, Work & Vocation, Money & Possessions, Faith & Trust, Hope & Confidence, Joy & Gratitude, Peace & Rest, Humility & Pride, Patience & Waiting, Courage & Strength, Wisdom & Understanding, Freedom & Truth, Love, Relationships & Family, Guilt & Forgiveness, Service & Love of Neighbour, Justice & Commitment, Ethical Questions, Church & Congregation, Witness & Mission, Prayer & Silence, Discipleship, Growth & Character, Temptation & Struggle, Guidance & God's Will

All quotes · lumen.bible