Spiritual Effort Quotes

#1. We are drawn to artists who tell us that art is difficult to do and takes a spiritual effort, because we are still puritan enough to respect a strenuous spiritual effort.

John Updike

#2. So you say faith is not enough for you and you want knowledge, too. But knowledge does not involve spiritual effort; knowledge is obvious. Faith assumes effort. Knowledge is repose and faith is motion.

Evgenij Vodolazkin

#3. There is an atmosphere of spiritual effort here. No other city is quite like it. I wake early, often at 5 o'clock, and start writing at once.

James Joyce

#4. Great causes cannot be served by intellectual equipment alone, they call for spiritual effort of soul-force.

Mahatma Gandhi

#5. Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in the future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.

Sri Yukteswar Giri

#6. It's not what you do - it's the intensity of your feeling that determines how far you go in the spiritual life.

Frederick Lenz

#7. In this world, it is a great Self-effort to deliberately remain ignorant despite knowing, right? I deliberately remain ignorant in spite of having the Knowledge.

Dada Bhagwan

#8. Without waiting for others acknowledge your purpose, remaining balanced when things don't work out, and uncompromising in your effort; realize that you have a piece of the universe for which she cannot exist without.

Forrest Curran

#9. Disease is, in essence, the result of conflict between soul and mind, and will never be eradicated except by spiritual and mental effort.

Edward Bach

#10. If at times my productions do not express the conventionally beautiful, there is always an effort to express the universal beauty of man's continuous struggle to lift his social position and to add dimension to his spiritual being.

Jacob Lawrence

#11. When Boredom comes, it is the time during which discovery is to be made. That is the time during which real effort (purushartha) can be made. But instead, people push it aside.

Dada Bhagwan

#12. Spiritual discipline: any activity I do by direct effort that will help me do what I cannot now do by direct effort.

Mark Buchanan

#13. No pain will last forever. It is not easy, but life was never meant to be either easy or fair. Repentance and the lasting hope that forgiveness brings will always be worth the effort.

Boyd K. Packer

#14. If you can attribute your success entirely to your own mental effort, to your own attitude, to some spiritual essence that you have that is better than other people's, then that must feel pretty good.

Barbara Ehrenreich

#15. If the fruit (of your effort) is to your expectations, it is the effect (prarabdha, result) of your merit karma [punya karma], if it is not to your expectation, then it is the effect of your demerit karma [paap karma].

Dada Bhagwan

#16. Coming to the END of MYSELF and all SELF effort ... seems to be the very point that God steps in and shows HIMSELF to be more than ENOUGH.

John Paul Warren

#17. Jesus calls us to his rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort.

A.W. Tozer

#18. It is only in a very quiet mind that great things are born; and a quiet mind does not come about through effort, through control, through discipline.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

#19. Misplaced effort in the spiritual life often consists in stubbornly insisting upon compulsive routines which seem to us to be necessary because they accord with our own short-sighted notions.

Thomas Merton

#20. We put up a kind of spiritual firewall and make a conscious effort to shut out the headlines, because our (Bible) discussions are meant to be timeless.

John Kasich

#21. A spiritual 'spurter' is one who is given to short bursts of spectacular effort followed by frequent and lengthy periods of rest.

David A. Bednar

#22. It may be a superhuman effort to lose oneself so completely, but that's nothing compared to the effort of getting oneself back again

Donna Tartt

#23. Spirituality is not primarily about values and ethics, not about exhortations to do right or live well. The spiritual traditions are primarily about reality ... an effort to penetrate the illusions of the external world and to name its underlying truth.

Parker J. Palmer

#24. Make every effort to hear directly from God.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#25. Meditation, then, is not so much a part of this or that particular religion, but rather part of the universal spiritual culture of all humankind
an effort to bring awareness to bear on all aspects of life. It is, in other words, part of what has been called the perennial philosophy.

Ken Wilber

#26. Never, in any case, is any effort of true attention lost. It is always completely effective on the spiritual plane, and therefore also, in addition, on the inferior plane of the intelligence, for all spiritual light enlightens the intelligence.

Simone Weil

#27. People do not know what good deeds are. It is udaya karma,unfolding effects of past karma; that makes them do the deeds. The prakruti, the relative self, forces them to do them. What is your own thing [effort] in that? Doing good deeds; that too is mandatory (farajiyat)!

Dada Bhagwan

#28. The certain way to victory ... lies in making everything on Imperial soil contribute to the war effort ... combining the total material and spiritual strength of the nation ...

Yoshijiro Umezu

#29. If you shift from compulsiveness to consciousness, being joyful will not be an effort.

Jaggi Vasudev

#30. The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little more than changing our ideas about what is normal.

Deepak Chopra

#31. It takes no effort to love. The state has its own innate joy. Questions answer themselves if you are aware enough. Life is safe; flowing with the current of being is the simplest way to live. Resistance never really succeeds. Controlling the flow of life is impossible.

Deepak Chopra

#32. Evil originates not in the absence of guilt; but in our effort to escape it.

Shannon L. Alder

#33. The effort of the genuine spiritual seeker should be to cultivate love until the mind becomes saturated by it.

Bhante Y. Wimala

#34. Nothing in this world is 'by chance'. There are "covered causes" (hidden) within. 'By chance' is also the result of an effort.

Dada Bhagwan

#35. Self Effort (Purushartha) is that which will bear fruits, without fail.

Dada Bhagwan

#36. Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance.

Henri Nouwen

#37. A genuine transformation that results from sustained concerted effort is long lasting because it has a firm foundation.

Dalai Lama

#38. Let us be among those who believe that the inner transformation of our lives is a goal worthy of our best effort. -P. 11

Richard J. Foster