The Serenity Prayer is the common name for an originally untitled prayer by twentieth century American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. The prayer has been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs.
The best-known form is:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Read more about Serenity Prayer: Cultural Use
Famous quotes containing the words serenity and/or prayer:
“The day is always his, who works in it with serenity and great aims.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous surface.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)