“Truth will not lose ground by being tried”

“Oh come! be not wedded to your own ways, nor prejudiced against what God hath taught others; but let things be fairly scanned, that all things may be proved, and that which is good held fast; for truth will not lose ground by being tried; but darkness is afraid of the light, because it has a secret sense that it cannot stand before it.”

“I believe there is something in the mind, or in the heart, that shows its approbation when we do right. I give myself this advice: Do not fear truth, let it be so contrary to inclination and feeling. Never give up the search after it: and let me take courage, and try from the bottom of my heart to do that which I believe truth dictates, if it leads me to be a Quaker or not.”

“From the earliest days, Quakers were known for speaking truth as they experienced it inwardly in their meetings for worship. They didn’t make a distinction between belief and action. Truth was almost more of a verb than a noun; it was something which you ‘did’ as you experienced it.”

“Early Friends called themselves many things. One of the labels that they gave to themselves was ‘Publishers of Truth’. They meant that in the most basic form of making truth public. It could mean being what was called in the 17th century a ‘public Friends,’ one who was led to preach, to public ministry, to declare the word of the lord anywhere they could find an audience.”

“That none be busy-bodies in other’s matters, but each one to bear another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ; that they be sincere and without offence, and that all things which are honest be done without murmurings and disputings; that they may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, amongst whom they may shine as lights in the world.”

“The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world.”

“To see the failings of our friends, and think hard of them, without opening that which we ought to open, and still carry a face of friendship, this tends to undermine the foundation of true unity.”

“Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.”

O Spirit of that early day, / So pure and strong and true, / Be with us in the narrow way / Our faithful fathers knew. / Give strength the evil to forsake, / The cross of Truth to bear, / And love and reverent fear to make / Our daily lives a prayer!

“Inner silence, calming the agitations of our hearts and minds, letting go of all that is stubborn and grasping, is essentially an expression of the love of truth. To be dispassionate, not to let one’s own needs or prejudices or emotions color one’s actions, is essentially to put truth before everything else. To love truth in this way is to love God, who is Truth. Thus the practice of inner silence is the same as the love of God.”

“Mind the light of God in your consciences, which will show you all deceit; dwelling in it, guides out of the many things into one spirit, which cannot lie, nor deceive. Those who are guided by it, are one.”

“If we are sensitive, we find that everything that happens to us, good or bad, can help us to build a vision of the meaning of life. We can be helped to be sensitive by reading the Bible and being open to experience of nature, music, books, painting, sport or whatever our particular interest may be. It is in and through all things that we hear God speaking to us. But I do not think I am alone in my certainty that it’s in my relationships with people that the deepest religious truths are most vividly disclosed.”

“We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt.”

“To you who are seekers, to you, young and old who have toiled all night and caught nothing, but who want to launch out into the deeps and let down your nets for a draught, I want to speak as simply, as tenderly, as clearly as I can. For God can be found.”

“Creating and holding space for discernment is profoundly counter-cultural work. We live in a culture that too often regards us as empty vessels to be filled with someone else’s knowledge, someone else’s agenda, someone else’s truth… Spiritual discernment is about trusting the fact that all of us are made in God’s image and all of us have access to God’s call for our lives.”

“Nothing does reason more right, than the coolness of those who offer it, for truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers.”

“When I feel the hard edge of judgment in my body and hear it in my words and thoughts, I am learning that I need to stop and softly bring my attention to my heart. I like to hold the image of one hand on my heart and one hand on the heart of the other. From this place of compassion, I seek to understand both of us and empower both of us to be in our truths, whatever that may be. I give myself permission to be changed/influenced by the other. I also give myself and the other permission to decide to back away or disengage if that serves Truth. If I decide to disengage, I will do it with loving kindness and not harshness.”

“If you love the light, then you come to the light to be proved, and tried whether your works be wrought in God. But that which hates the light, turns from the light, and that shall be condemned by the light forever. And though you may turn from the light, where the unity is, and you may turn from the eternal truth; but from the witness of God in your consciences, (which he hath placed in you, which beareth witness for the living God,) you can never fly; that shall pursue you wherever you go.”

“If we are loyal to the truth as we see it, and respond with our might in the ‘common’ situations in day-to-day living as we face them, the glow of the grace of God deepens and nurtures our faculties for insight and for recognition of the true worth of things and of men.”

“Because the evidence and experiences on which we act are usually conflicting and ambivalent, and because we are by nature vulnerable to our capacity for self-deception, discernment is often tentative and uncertain. We may not feel a great sense of having found the truth.”

“Corporate discernment of the will of God is a risky and imperfect proposition. In relying so extensively on the Holy Spirit, we make ourselves vulnerable to pitfalls and failures. However, far from being a weakness, such vulnerability is central to our understanding of the power of worship (and business) ‘in spirit and in truth.'”

“Quakers are also known as ‘seekers of truth’. How do we maintain that fundamental commitment to truth in an age of widespread online misinformation and disinformation?  …Quakerism was formed in an earlier era of unprecedented misinformation and disinformation, with often unreliable printed pamphlets widely available. Quaker testimony and practice and the distilled wisdom on which we can draw provide a very sound basis for combatting fake news. We need to stay focussed on the still small voice of calm.”

“How do we make use of our social media? Do we post content that not only conforms to our worldview, but to the higher standard of truthfulness? Today, when so many of our social interactions happen online and our public persona lives on social media, do we make every effort to post in integrity?”