Daily Inspiration Quote by Dwight L. Moody

Moody’s line doesn’t flatter the reader’s spirituality; it disciplines it. The first clause hits the modern instinct to rank teachings by convenience: love your enemies is “hard,” but forgive a debt, watch your tongue, keep the Sabbath, give to the poor, pray in secret - those can feel like optional micro-practices, the kind of “small stuff” people wave off as cultural or personal preference. Moody denies that escape hatch. For him, “trifle” isn’t just “minor”; it’s the attitude that treats obedience as a negotiation.

The syntax does a lot of the work. “Never think” targets the interior life - the private rationalizations that come before behavior. “Nor dare” raises the temperature: it’s not only mistaken to downplay a command, it’s audacious, almost insolent. Moody frames obedience as reverence under authority, not self-expression. The subtext is a warning against the respectable, middle-class Christianity of his era that could be sincere yet selective, pious in big statements while casual about the unglamorous disciplines that actually shape character.

Context matters. Moody was a revivalist in an industrializing America addicted to efficiency, profit, and pragmatism. In that world, “trifles” are what you cut when you’re busy. His ministry pushed back with a blunt spiritual economics: the smallest command is still issued by the same Lord. He’s also policing religious drift - a community that treats Jesus as inspiration rather than commander will inevitably start editing him. Moody’s intent is to make that editing feel not sophisticated but dangerous: the first step toward hollow belief is laughing off the “little” parts.