Top 231 Quotes & Sayings by Teresa of Avila - Page 4

Patience obtains everything.

Our soul can find in the Blessed Sacrament all the joys and consolations it desires.

Ah, how true it is that we love ourselves too much and proceed with too much human prudence, that we may not lose an atom of our consideration! Oh, what a great mistake that is! The Saints did not act thus.

His Majesty [the Lord] . . . rewards great services with trials, and there can be no better reward, for out of trials springs love for God.

I felt a great dislike to journeys, especially when they were long. But once I had started, I thought nothing of them, thinking of Him for Whose service they were undertaken and remembering that Our Lord would be praised and the most Holy Sacrament would dwell in the house I was going to found... It should be a great consolation to us - though many of us do not think of it - that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, dwells as He does in so many places in the most Holy Sacrament

Anyone who has the habit of speaking before God's majesty as if he were speaking to a slave, careless about how he is speaking, and saying whatever comes into his head and whatever he's learned from saying prayers at other times, in my opinion is not praying. Please, God, may no Christian pray in this way.

Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour.

The hour I have long wished for is now come.

Let him never cease from prayer who has once begun it, be his life ever so wicked; for prayer is the way to amend it, and without prayer such amendment will be much more difficult.

It is only mercenaries who expect to be paid by the day.

There was the torture of sermons, and that not a slight one, for I was very fond of them.

I only wish I could write with both hands, so as not to forget one thing while I am saying another.

It will be as well, I think, to explain these locutions of God, and to describe what the soul feels when it receives them.

I say the same of humility and of all the virtues; the wiles of the devil are terrible, he will run a thousand times round hell if by so doing he can make us believe that we have a single virtue which we have not. And he is right, for such ideas are very harmful, and such imaginary virtues, when they come from this source, are never unaccompanied by vainglory; just as those which God gives are free both from this and from pride.

Hope, O my soul, hope. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience turns a very short time into a long one.

Patient endurance / Attaineth to all things.

Alas, O Lord, to what a state dost Thou bring those who love Thee!

Never exaggerate, but express your feelings with moderation.

How is it, Lord, that we are cowards in everything save in opposing thee?

[On her father:] ... in losing him I lost my greatest blessing and comfort, for he was always that to me.

Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God Finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices.

I once heard a spiritual man say that he was not so much astonished at the things done by a soul in mortal sin as at the things not done by it. May God, in his mercy, deliver us from such great evil, for there is nothing in the whole of our lives that so thoroughly deserves to be called evil as this, since it brings endless and eternal evils in its train.

If we do not use great care to mortify our will, there are many things which can deprives us of the holy freedom of spirit that we are seeking in order to fly more freely to our Creator, without always being bogged down with the clay of this earth. Moreover, there can never be solid virtue in a soul that is attached to its own will.

Patient endurance attends to all things.

Seldom or never is a poor man honored by the world; however worthy of honor he may be, he is apt rather to be despised by it.

I fully realize that this gratitude of mine is not in the least a sign of perfection: it must be my nature - I could be suborned with a sardine.

Learn to self-conquest, persevere thus for a time, and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it. As soon you apply yourself to orison, you will at once feel your senses gather themselves together: they seem like bees which return to the hive and there shut themselves up to work at the making of honey. At the first call of the will, they come back more and more quickly. At last, after countless exercises, of this kind, God disposes them to a state of utter rest and of perfect contemplation.

To wish to act like angels while we are still in this world is nothing but folly.

Holy church-that mother who is also a queen because she is a king's bride.

In order to profit from this path [of prayer] and ascend to the dwelling places we desire, the important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so, do that which best stirs you to love.

The true penance comes when God takes away the soul's health and strength for doing penance. Even though I have mentioned elsewhere the great pain this lack causes, the pain is much more intense here. All these things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.

There is more security in self-denial, mortification, and other like virtues, than in an abundance of tears.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

I am quite sure that if we could but once approach the Most Holy Sacrament with great faith and love, it would suffice to make us rich. How much more so if we approach it often!

God never changes; Patient endurance Attains to all things; Who God possesses In nothing is wanting; Alone God suffices.

Learn to self-conquest, persevere thus for a time, and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it.

However much we do to avoid them, we shall never lack crosses in this life if we are in the ranks of the Crucified.

We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reason for thinking so; but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Be sure that, in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, and in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him.

Do you suppose that God has any need of our works? What God needs is the resoluteness of our will.

Be gentle and kind with every one, and severe with yourself.

Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God. God alone is sufficient.

Jacob did not cease to be a Saint because he had to attend to his flocks.

A slight failing in one virtue is enough to put all the others to sleep.

God aids the valiant...both to you and to me He will give the help needed.

Lord, how Thou dost afflict Thy lovers!

The words are very distinctly formed; but by the bodily ear they are not heard. They are, however, much more clearly understood than they would be if they were heard by the ear. It is impossible not to understand them, whatever resistance we may offer... There is no escape, for in spite of ourselves we must listen...

I would never want any prayer that would not make the virtues grow within me.

Life is to life in such a way that we are not afraid to die.

The same know contentment, for beauty is their lover, and beauty is never absent from this world.

Who God possesseth In nothing is wanting; Alone God sufficeth.

Untilled soil, however fertile it may be, will bear thistles and thorns; so it is with man's mind.