john Bunyan
Note: All quotes are from The Pilgrim's Progress, revised and updated by L.Edward Hazelbaker 1998, Bridge-Logos Publishers, North Brunswick, NJ
“ '...a Christian can never be overcome unless he himself yields.' ” (322)
“ 'A man may have knowledge like an angel and yet not be a Christian.' ” (107)
“ '...although I've gotten there with great difficulty, yet I don't regret all the trouble I've had to deal with to arrive where I am.' ” (409)
“ 'And as for all these troubles you tell me about--which I'm likely to meet with in the Way--they're so far off from being a discouragement to me that they show me I'm in the right. The bitter must come before the sweet, and that will also make the sweet all the sweeter.' ” (234)
“ 'Be faithful, even to the point of death, and my King will give you the crown of life.' ” (405)
" 'Be of good cheer! Jesus Christ makes you whole!' ” (205)
“ 'Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!' ” (242)
“ 'but it's not as bad going through here as it is to live here always. And for all I know, one reason why we must go this way to the house prepared for us is so that our home might be made all the sweeter to us.' ” (315)
“ 'But let them who walk in the dark, who have no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God.'” (315)
“ 'but little and more are nothing to him who has the truth on his side.' ” (383)
“But the men being patient, and not rendering insult for insult but instead blessing, and giving good words for bad and kindness for injuries done, some people in the fair who were more observing and less prejudiced than the rest began to check and blame the meaner ones for continually abusing the men.” (121)
“ 'But you didn't come in at the Narrow Gate that is at the beginning of this path. You came in there, through that crooked lane. I fear, therefore, that whatever you may think of yourself, when the day of reckoning comes you will be charged with being a thief and a robber instead of getting admittance into the City.' ” (164)
“ '...by the laws of providence, no Pilgrim who is taken by violent hands is to die by the hand of the enemy if he remains sincere toward his Master... I escaped with life, and for that I thank my King as Author and you as the means.' ” (348)
“Christian responded, 'If you intend to go with us, you must go against wind and tide, which is, I believe, against your opinion. You must also accept Religion in his rags as well as when he is in his silver slippers and stand by him too when he is bound in irons as well as when he walks the streets with applause.' ” (133)
“ ' 'Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise!' ' ” (82, also Micah 7:8)
“ 'Do they think they'll know themselves then, or that they'll rejoice to see themselves in that bliss? And if they think they'll know and do these things, why not know others and rejoice in their welfare also? Again, since marriage partners are our second self, and though that state will be dissolved there, yet why may it not be rationally concluded that we'll be more glad to see them there than to see they were left wanting?' ” (386)
“ 'Don't be afraid, just believe and speak your mind.' ” (265)
“ 'During their times of greatest enjoyment, Pilgrims should watch and remember what they've already received.' ” (279)
“ 'Even if a man has all knowledge, he may yet be nothing and so consequently not a child of God.' ” (107)
“ 'Everyone will cry out and commend the goodness of people, but who is there who will, as one should, be so affected with the goodness of God?' ” (262)
“ 'For as death and the Curse came into the world by a woman, so also did life and health.' ” (340)
“ '...for if I had been thinking of the country I had left, I would have had opportunity to return. Instead, I am longing for a better country--a heavenly one.' ” (66)
“ ' 'For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.' ' ” (272-3)
“ 'For true justifying faith causes the soul--understanding its lost condition by the Law--to flee for refuge unto Christ's righteousness.' ” (193)
“ 'For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.' ” (39... also 2 Corinthians 4:18)
“ 'Forbidden fruit will make you sick, but not what our Lord has tolerated.' ” (343)
“ 'He doesn't place the blessing in knowing them but in doing them.' ” (107)
“ 'He has held me, and I've kept myself from my iniquities. Yes, He has strengthened my steps in His Way.' ” (412)
“He knows, he at the End
Shall Life inherit.
Then Fancies fly away,
He'll fear not what men say,
He'll labour Night and Day
To be a Pilgrim.” (389)
“He that bestows his Goods upon the Poor,
Shall have as much again, and ten times more.”
“He that is down, needs fear no Fall;
He that is low, no Pride:
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his Guide.
...
I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much:
And, Lord, Contentment still I crave,
Because thou savest such.”
“ 'He who forgets his friend is ungrateful to him, but he who forgets his Savior is unmerciful to himself.' ” (262)
“ '...he who has a heart to give of his labor to the Poor shall never lack the ability to give...He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.' ” (377)
“ '...he who kills someone else can only commit murder of that person's body, but for one to kill himself is to kill the body and soul at the same time.' ” (152)
“ 'I advise you to repent of your tendency to fear and doubt His goodness before He sends for you' ” (406)
“ 'I believed, and therefore came out, got into the Way, fought everything that set itself against me, and by believing I've come to this place.' ” (388)
“ 'I do these things to be rich in good deeds and to lay up treasure for myself as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that I may take hold of the life that is truly life.' ” (295)
“ 'I have little to send to my family except it be prayers and tears for them. If you acquaint them with those, that will be enough if they prevail with them.' ” (411)
“ 'I haven't read that any man ever gave to Christ so much as one penny, but the women followed Him and helped support Him out of their own means. It was a woman who washed His feet with tears, and a woman who anointed His body for burial. They were woman who wept when He was going to the Cross, and women who followed Him from the cross and who sat by His Sepulcher when He was buried. They were women who were with Him first at His Resurrection Morning, and women who first brought to His disciples word that He had risen from the dead. Women, therefore, are highly favored, and by these things they show that they are sharers with us in the Grace of Life.' ” (340)
“ 'I knew He could hear and provide invisible help, and that was sufficient for me.' ” (384)
“ 'I must continue, for to go back means nothing but death. To go forward is the fear of death, but beyond it is life everlasting. I'll keep going forward.' ” (58)
“ '...I saw such things there that the memory of them will stick with me as long as I live. This is especially true of three things: First--how Christ, in spite of Satan, maintains His work of grace in the heart; Second--how the man had sinned himself quite out of the hope of obtaining God's mercy; and Third--the dream of him who thought in his sleep the day of judgment had come.' ” (65)
“ 'I see that talking and doing are two different things, and after this I'll pay closer attention to this distinction.' ” (104)
“ 'I walk by the rule of my Master...You walk by the rude working of your imaginations. The Lord of the Way already considers you to be thieves, so I doubt you'll be found worthy at the end of the Way. You came in by yourselves without His direction, and you'll go out by yourselves without His mercy.' ” (52)
“ 'I'd rather go up the ladder to life than down the hill to death.' ” (278)
“ ' 'If I may have the happiness to have a dwelling there, it will be enough even though I part with all the world to win it.' ' ” (330)
“ '...if nobody will have me, I'll die unmarried or my conditions will be to me like a husband. For I can't change my nature, and I purpose to never, as long as I live, allow myself to have one who lies crosswise to me in this.' ” (295)
“ 'If that man had in his life a week to run twenty miles, he would've been unwilling to defer that journey until the last hour of that week.' ” (333)
“ 'If the world, which God accounts as less significant, is considered by people to be a thing of worth, how is Heaven considered, which is commended by God?' ” (262)
“ 'If we so hate to let go of the life that is accompanied with so many troubles, what is our feeling for the life above?' ” (262)
“ 'if you love life, prepare yourselves, for the Robbers are ahead of you!' ” (337)
“ '...in Jesus Christ there is more merit and righteousness than the whole world has need of.' ” (262)
“ '...instead of cleaning the sinful heart by its works, the law actually energizes, puts strength into, and increases sin in the soul. Even though it reveals and condemns sin, it doesn't have the power to conquer it.' ” (38)
“ 'It's my duty...to distrust my own ability so I might rely on Him who is stronger than all.' ” (321)
“ 'It's not always necessary to grant things not asked for...lest by doing so, they become of little value. But when the desire of a thing is felt, it then comes to be valued properly as it is worth in the eyes of the person who feels it, and who will consequently thereafter use it.' ” (253)
“ 'I've been commanded to resist sin, to overcome evil, and to fight the good fight of faith.' ” (369)
“ 'I've heard him plead for it, quote Scripture for it, and bring arguments for it,' stated Mr. Honest.
'It's an opinion that's not fit to be allowed in the world in any way,' said Great Heart.” (332)
“ 'I've seen some who seemed not to be the least bit promising when they first set out to be Pilgrims, and who one wouldn't think could've lived a day, which yet proved to be very good Pilgrims. I've seen some who've run hastily forward, and who after a little time have run just as fast back again.' ” (334)
“ 'Let nothing on this side of the Other World get inside of you, and above all, pay close attention to your own hearts and to the desires of it, for they're more deceitful than anything and desperately wicked. Set your faces like stone. You have all power in Heaven and earth on your side.' ” (112-3)
“ '...no man can know Jesus Christ except through the revelation of the Father. Yes, and also faith--by which the soul lays hold upon Christ, if it be right--must be wrought by the exceeding greatness of His Mighty Power' ” (194)
“ '...no man has been able to easily shake off the things with which he was oppressed.' ” (330)
“Now I saw that behind the multitude there stood a chariot and a team of horses waiting for Faithful, who as soon as his adversaries had taken his life was taken up into it and immediately carried up through the clouds with the sound of a trumpet. He was taken by the nearest way to the Celestial gate.” (127)
“ 'old men who are gracious are best able to give advice to them who are young because they've seen most of teh emptiness of things.' ” (345)
“One individual, seeing how the men conducted themselves, mockingly risked to say to them, 'What do you intend to buy?'
They looked upon him seriously and said, 'We buy the truth.' ” (120)
“ 'One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.' ” (262)
“ ' 'One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.' 'One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.' ' ” (343)
“Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy Name survive;
For tho' they kill'd thee, thou art yet alive.” (128)
“ 'Remember the sayings, 'They do not practice what they preach,' and 'For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.' He talks about prayer, repentance, faith, and the New Birth, but he only knows how to talk about them.' ” (103)
“ 'Seeing then that God prefers this religion, that He prefers a tender conscience, and that they who make themselves fools for the Kingdom of Heaven are the wisest and that the poor man who loves Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world who hates him, I said, 'Shame, go away! You are an enemy to my salvation.' ' ” (96)
“ '...sin is so great and mighty as a tyrant, that no one but God can pull us out of its clutches, and that God is so good and loving to people as to indeed pull them out of this miserable state.' ” (292)
“ '...suffer and put up with wrongs without murmurings and complaints.' ” (260)
“...'the lack of this is the reason so few understand the need of faith and the necessity of a work of grace in their soul in order to obtain eternal life.' ” (101)
“ '...the Law not only binds the one who is under it to do justly but to also use love.' ” (273)
“ 'The people of this world must have all their good things now, for they can't wait for their portion of good things until next year--that is, until the next world. The proverb 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' carries more weight with them than all the divine testimonies of the worth of the world to come. But as you saw, he quickly wasted it all away and soon had nothing left for himself but rags. So it will be with all such people at the end of the world.' ” (39)
“ '...the Ruler of the City will easily recognize me since I have this coat on my back--a coat He freely gave me the day He stripped me of my rags.' ” (52)
“ 'The soul of religion is the practical part. 'Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.' Talkative isn't aware of this. He thinks that hearing and saying will make him a good Christian, and so he deceives his own soul. Hearing is only like the sowing of seed. Talking isn't sufficient to prove that fruit is truly in the heart and life' ” (104-5)
“ '...the sweet and precious influences of the gospel to the heart conquer and defeat sin. The soul is made clean through the faith of the gospel, and consequently the soul is fit for the King of Glory to inhabit.' ” (38)
“The token, let easily into her heart, was an arrow with a point sharpened with love, which by degrees worked so effectually in here that at the time appointed she must be gone.” (405)
“ '...the wise God will have it so; some must play the flute, and some must weep.' ” (328)
“ 'The world is now filled with such as he. But I want none of them.' ” (296)
“Then Christian smiled smugly because he had gotten ahead of his Brother; and not paying attention to his feet, he suddenly stumbled and fell and could not rise again until Faithful came to help him.” (89)
“ 'Then I ask...if there was ever anything that lived antecedent to or before God.'
'No...for God is eternal, nor is there anything, excepting himself, that had an existence until the beginning of the first day.' ” (293)
“Then the thought occurred to me that it is easier going out of the Way when we are in it than it is going in when we are out of it.” (150)
“ 'There are two things that those who go on Pilgrimage need to have with them--courage and an unpolluted life.' ” (360)
“ 'Therefore, quit trying to persuade me; for I am His servant, and I will follow Him.' ” (79)
“ 'they who lack the beginning have neither middle nor end.' ” (331)
“ '...this Man will die before one of those committed to His trust should be lost.' ” (368)
“ 'those who throw dirt at him are such as hate his goodness, but...the dirt will not stick upon his clothes; and so it will be with anyone who truly lives innocently in the world. Whoever they be that would make such men dirty, they labor all in vain, for in time, God will cause their innocence to shine like the dawn and their righteousness as the noonday.' ” (377)
“ 'Though because of worldly desires, faithless ones can pawn, mortgage, or sell what they have--and themselves to boot--yet those who have faith, Saving Faith--though perhaps little of it--can't do it. Here, therefore, my Brother, is your mistake.' ” (168)
“ 'Thus being launched again into the gulf of misery, they perish and eternally in their own deceptions unless a miracle of grace prevents it.' ” (199)
“ 'To eat up the sin of God's people is no sign that one possesses their virtues. Nor can I belieave that one who is of this opinion can presently have in him faith or love.' ” (333)
“ 'True,' said Christian, 'I was born in your empire. Yet serving you was hard, and the wages you paid were such that a man couldn't live on them, 'for the wages of sin is death.' ' ” (78)
“ 'until grace displays itself and overcomes the soul with its glory, it's entirely without strength to oppose sin... nor will any who understands either reason or grace believe that such a man can be a monument to grace when he is a slave to his own corruptions.' ” (345)
“ 'What is more worthy than the use of the tongue and mouth of people on Earth than to speak of the things of the God of Heaven?' ” (101)
“ '...when He passes sentence upon all the workers of iniquity, be they angels or men, you'll also have a voice in that judgment because they were His and your enemies.' ” (207)
“ 'When in bed, we need not lie awake to talk with God. He can visit us while we sleep and cause us then to hear His voice. Our heart often wakes when we sleep, and God can speak to it either by words and proverbs or by signs and similitudes, as well as if one were awake.' ” (291)
“ 'Whispering and change of mind prove that sin is in the world.' ” (262)
“ 'You must receive the comfort of all your toil and have joy for all your sorrow. You must reap what you've sown, even the fruit of all your prayers, tars, and sufferings for the King while you were in the Way. In this place you must wear crowns of gold and enjoy the perpetual sight and vision of the Holy One, 'for we shall see Him as He is.' There, you shall also serve Him continually with praisse, shouting, and thanksgiving, even Him whom you desired to serve in the world, though with much difficulty because of the weakness of your flesh.' ” (207)
“ 'You'll not see there again such things as you saw when you were in the lower region upon the earth--that is, sorrow, sickness, affliction, and death, for the old order of things has passed away.' ' ” (206)
“ 'Your Lord Christ is He who has worked, and what He labored for He has given away to the next poor beggar He meets.' ” (273)
“ 'Your travel here has been with difficulty, but that will make your rest all the sweeter. But watch and be ready, for the messenger may come at an hour when you think not.' ” (406)