April 2025: This is a collection of quotes by Quaker Women. We learn from the wisdom of 400 years of ministry from women and folx with marginalized genders and identities. We read about the inspiring lives of Quaker martyrs, mystics, and leaders, and listen directly to people whose voices are not always heard.
“‘The children’s meeting’ of 1663 is famous among Friends. In 1906, some Friends made a book about it, [a fictionalized account] told in the words of fourteen-year-old Judith, who was there in 1663.
At the end of that first week, on Saturday, with their parents still in jail, Judith’s friend Maria came to visit and asked:
‘Who will gather the meeting tomorrow?'”
“One day Winnie the Pooh went to visit his friend Rabbit. Rabbit, always the consummate host, offered Pooh some honey which Pooh gladly accepted. Pooh, true to form, ate rather too much honey and as he was leaving got stuck in Rabbit’s door.
Pooh was stuck half in and half out. He couldn’t go back in and he couldn’t get out. He was stuck so tight he couldn’t even sigh.
(That’s what grief feels like for many people.)”
The plow has savaged this sweet field / Misshapen clods of earth kicked up / Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view / Last year’s growth demolished by the blade.
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy.”
Man was made for Joy & Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.
Joy & Woe are woven fine,
A Clothing for the Soul divine;
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
“Night and day are a continuum. Our planet is constantly turning day into night, and back again to day, with some of the loveliest times being dawn and evening, when it is not sharply either day or night. Our planet is seasonal. Winter gives way to spring, to summer, to autumn, and back to winter. Our lives, too, are seasonal and cyclical.”
“[At my first sit-in] we sat there for two days waiting for something to eat. And it was the most challenging two days of my life. People came up and spat at us in the face. They put lit cigarettes down our backs, our shirts. People would punch us in the stomach so hard that we would fall on the floor, and then they would kick us.”
“It is in my heart to praise thee, O my God; let me never forget thee, what thou hast been to me in the night by thy presence, in the day of trial when I was beset in darkness, when I was cast out as a wandering bird, and when I was assaulted with strong temptations, then thy presence in secret did preserve me, and in a low estate I felt thee near me.”
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole.
There is a balm in Gilead
to heal our broken souls.
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