41 Quotes by Karen Swallow Prior

…mischief, …arises not from our living in the world, but from the world living in us; occupying our hearts, and monopolizing our affections.

Freedom is not an endless sea of choices, but an acceptance, embrace even, of both the nature and the grace at the core of our being and our becoming.

The more I see of the ‘hounoured, famed, and great,’ the more I see of the littleness, the unsatisfactoriness of all created good; and that no earthly pleasure can fill up the wants of the immortal principle within.

…evangelicals were instrumental in advancing the ideal of companionate marriage, one built on shared faith and mutual affection, a revolutionary notion in an era in which forced marriages were a not-so-distant memory.

Pride is always a way of not seeing oneself properly, whereas humility is"self-knowledge perfected.

What good literature can do and does do—far greater than any importation of morality—is touch the human soul.

But the cultivation and expression of virtue (and vice) and the formation of conscience is not merely an individual act but also a communal one. In addition to shaping individual experience and character, great literature has a role in forming the communal conscience and public virtue. We can understand a great deal about culture—its strengths, its weakness, its blind spots, and its struggles—when we examine the literature it not only produces but reveres.

Humility is not, therefore, simply a low regard for oneself; rather, it is a proper view of oneself that is low in comparison to God and in recognition of our own fallenness. "Humility is thinking less about yourself, not thinking less of yourself.

Seeing who we really are--which requires seeing ourselves in relationship to God--is true humility.Humility is taking our place, no matter how small (or big), and fulfilling that place with a heart overflowing with love.