Top 106 Quotes & Sayings by St. Catherine of Siena

Lord, take me from myself and give me to yourself.

And of what should we be afraid? Our captain on this battlefield is Christ Jesus. We have discovered what we have to do. Christ has bound our enemies for us and weakened them that they cannot overcome us unless we so choose to let them. So we must fight courageously and mark ourselves with the sign of the most Holy Cross.

We are of such value to God that He came to live among us... and to guide us home. He will go to any length to seek us, even to being lifted high upon the cross to draw us back to Himself. We can only respond by loving God for His love.

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.

You must believe in truth that whatever God gives or permits is for your salvation.

You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love.

There is nothing we can desire or want that we do not find in God.

Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.

You are obliged to love your neighbor as yourself, and loving him, you ought to help him spiritually, with prayer, counseling him with words, and assisting him both spiritually and temporally, according to the need in which he may be, at least with your goodwill if you have nothing else.

He has never left you.It is justthat your soul is so vastthat just likethe earth in its innocence,it may think,"I do not feel my lover's warmthagainst my face rightnow."But look, dear,is not the sun reaching down its armsand always holding a continentin its light?God cannot leave us.It is just that our soul is so vast,we do not always feel His lipsupon theveil.

Love does not stay idle.

God is closer to us than water is to a fish.

Of course you are unworthy. But when do you hope to be worthy? You will be no more worthy at the end than at the beginning. God alone is worthy of Himself, He alone can make us worthy of Him.

Out of darkness is born the light.

Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind.

Strange that so much suffering is caused because of the misunderstandings of God's true nature. God's heart is more gentle than the Virgin's first kiss upon the Christ. And God's forgiveness to all, to any thought or act, is more certain than our own being.

O my soul, what are you doing? Are you not aware that God sees you always? You can never hide yourself from His sight. O Father, have pity on us because we are blind and in darkness. Drive out the darkness and give me light. Melt the ice of my self-love and kindle in me the fire of Your charity.

Make two homes for thyself, my daughter. One actual home . . . and the other a spiritual home which thou are to carry with thee always.

The city is the image of the soul, the surrounding walls being the frontier between the outward and inward life. The gates are the faculties or senses connecting the life of the soul with the outward world. Living springs of water rise within it. And in the centre, where beats the heart, stands the holy sanctuary.

Ponder the fact that God has made you a gardener, to root out vice and plant virtue.

All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, "I am the way.

Do not presume to choose your own way of serving instead of the one I have made for you.

To the servant of God... every place is the right place, and every time is the right time.

What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and he might weep when they are gone.

A soul cannot live without loving. It must have something to love, for it was created to love.

Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.

It is the nature of love to love as much as we feel we are loved and to love whatever the one we love loves.

Do not be satisfied with little things, because God wants great things!

Love transforms one into what one loves.

The Devil often places himself upon the tongues of creatures, causing them to chatter nonsensically.

Hope comes from love, because people always trust in those they love.

Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.

Nails were not enough to hold God-and-man nailed and fastened on the Cross, had not love held Him there.

It is human to sin, but diabolic to persist in sin.

Obedience shows whether you are grateful.

The strongest and purest love is not the one that starts from impressions, but the one that comes from admiration.

The human heart is always drawn by love.

Consider your possessions loaned to you by God.

Lose yourself wholly; and the more you lose, the more you will find.

The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.

Every evil, harm and suffering in this life comes from the love of riches.

... people become like what they love.

From self-knowledge flows the stream of humility, which never seizes on mere report, nor takes offense at anything, but bears every insult, every loss of consolation, and every sorry, from whatever direction they may come, patiently, with joy.

He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely.

Preach the Truth as if you had a million voices. It is silence that kills the world.

It is only through shadows that one comes to know the light.

There is no sin nor wrong that gives man such a foretaste of Hell in this life as anger and impatience.

One who knows more, loves more.

God is more ready to pardon that we have been to sin.

Even if [the Pope an incarnate devil], we ought not to raise up our heads against him, but calmly lie down to rest on his bosom... He who rebels against our Father is condemned to death, for that which we do to him we do to Christ: we honor Christ if we honor the Pope; we dishonor Christ if we dishonor the Pope.

Eternal Trinity... mystery deep as the sea, You could give me no greater gift than the gift of Yourself. For You are a fire ever burning and never consumed, which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being.

When it seems that God shows us the faults of others, keep on the safer side-it may be that your judgment is false. On your lips let silence abide. And any vice that you may ascribe to others, ascribe at once to them and yourself, in true humility. If that vice really exists in a person, he will correct himself better, seeing himself so gently understood, and will say of his own accord the thing that you would have said to him.

Enrich your soul in the great goodness of God: The Father is your table, the Son is your food, and the Holy Spirit waits on you and then makes His dwelling in you.

We've been deceived by the thought that we would be more pleasing to God in our own way than in the way God has given us.

Consider God's charity. Where else have we ever seen someone who has been offended voluntarily paying out his life for those who have offended him?

Start being brave about everything. Drive out darkness and spread light. Don’ look at your weaknesses. Realize instead that in Christ crucified you can do everything.

We've had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence.

To join two things together there must be nothing between them or there cannot be a perfect fusion. Now realize that this is how God wants our soul to be, without any selfish love of ourselves or of others in between, just as God loves us without anything in between.

The devil fears hearts on fire with love of God.

Charity is the sweet and holy bond which links the soul with its Creator: it binds God with man and man with God.