Richard J. Foster Quotes

reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.

When the poor farmer of India is unable to buy a gallon of gasoline to run his simple water pump because the world's demand has priced him out of the market, who is to blame?

Inward solitude has outward manifestations. There is the freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from people but in order to hear the divine Whisper better.

In the context of Quaker worship, it is perfectly appropriate for any person in the congregation to speak a timely word from the Lord.

Conformity to a sick society is to be sick.

The lust for affluence in contemporary society has become psychotic; it has completely lost touch with reality.

We should all without shame enrol in the school of contemplative prayer.

Four times a year withdraw for three to four hours for the purpose of reorienting your life goals

And so I urge you: carry on an ongoing conversation with God about the daily stuff of life, a little like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. For now, do not worry about "proper" praying, just talk to God.

Prayer is seeing His greatness to the extent we can receive it.

Supremely, spiritual directors/mentors/pastors are persons who have a sense of being established in God. Otherwise they are too dangerous to be allowed into the soul space of others.

If we truly love people, we will desire for them far more than it is within our power to give them, and this leads us to prayer.

Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind. The two ideas are quite different

What is urgently needed is a bold new move from a consumer economy to a conserver economy in all of the developed countries, and particularly in the United States.

In spiritual direction there is absolutely no domination or control.

Prayer is - a means of uniting us unto Himself.

It is Stoicism that demands a closed universe, not the Bible.

If we are silent when we should speak, we are not living the Discipline of silence. If we speak when we should be silent, we again miss the mark.

Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don't.

Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem.

Prayer is - loving conversation with the One who has invited us into His embrace.

It is in the everyday and the commonplace that we learn patience, acceptance, and contentment.

Prayer is simply saying "thank you, bless you, praise you."

It is an occupational hazard of devout folk to become stuffy bores. This should not be. Of all people, we should be the most free, alive, interesting.

You will never have time for prayer; you must make time.

God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.

Simplicity, then, is getting in touch with the divine center

Cause every task of your day to be a sacred ministry to the Lord. however mundane your duties, for you they are a sacrament.

We do not have to have the correct answers to listen well. In fact, often the correct answers are a hindrance to listening well, for we become more anxious to give the correct answer than to hear.

In a world of limited resources, our wealth is at the expense of the poor. To put it simply, if we have it, others cannot.

The mind will always take on an order conforming to that upon which it concentrates.

To listen to others quiets and disciplines the mind to listen to God.

Thomas Merton writes that if we have meditated on the events of the Passion but have not meditated on Dachau and Auschwitz, our perception of God at work in present times is incomplete.

The truly Christian imagination never lets Jesus Christ out of her sight.

Meditation sends us into our ordinary world with greater perspective and balance.

We are not trying to manipulate God and tell Him what to do. Rather, we are asking Him to tell us what to do.

The great writings interact with one another. They cannot be read in isolation..

To conform to a sick society is to become sick.

Celebration comes when the common features of life are redeemed.

Discipline is to present us before grace, it does not produce grace to make sense.

Study cannot happen until we are subject to the subject.

True service is a lifestyle. It acts from the ingrained patterns of living. It springs spontaneously to meet human need.

Restriction often enhances clarity.

Spiritual disciplines answer the shallow world.

Worship may produce an outward change, but our inner condition will eventually be revealed

If we watch the interactions between human beings, we will receive a graduate-level education.

Important insights ought never to be limited to the group from which may arise.

To use good things to our own ends is always a false religion

Law will take over because law always carries with it a sense of security and manipulative power.