Top 94 Quotes & Sayings by Julian of Norwich

The Lord looks on his servants with pity and not with blame. In God's sight we do not fall; in our sight, we do not stand. Both of these are true, but the deeper insight belongs to God.

See that I am God. See that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor ever shall, eternally. See that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it. How can anything be amiss?

We need to fall, and we need to be aware of it; for if we did not fall, we should not know how weak and wretched we are of ourselves, nor should we know our Maker's marvellous love so fully.

Wouldst thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love. Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same. But thou shalt never know nor learn therein other thing without end. Thus was I learned that Love was our Lord's meaning.

The Elements of Prayer|Its ground: God, by whose goodness it springeth in us. |Its use: to turn our will to His will. |Its end: to be made one with Him and like to Him in all things.

For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it. No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves them. It is only with the help of his grace that we are able to persevere in spiritual contemplation with endless wonder at his high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his goodness has for us.

Every act of kindness and compassion done by any man for his fellow Christian is done by Christ working within him.

The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.

God is our clothing, that wraps, clasps and encloses us so as to never leave us.

Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not alway in peace and in love.

As we know, our own mother bore us only into pain and dying. But our true mother, Jesus, who is all love, bears us into joy and endless living. Blessed may he be.

Greatly ought we to rejoice that God dwells in our soul; and more greatly ought we to rejoice that our soul dwells in God. Our soul is created to be God’s dwelling place, and the dwelling of our souls is God, who is uncreated. It is a great understanding to see and know inwardly that God, who is our Creator, dwells in our soul, and it is a far greater understanding to see and know inwardly that our soul, which is created, dwells in God in substance, of which substance, though God, we are what we are.

In God's sight we do not fall: in our own we do not stand.

God willeth to be seen and to be sought: to be abided and to be trusted.

Everything has being through the love of God.

Pray inwardly, even if you do not enjoy it. It does good, though you feel nothing. Yes, even though you think you are doing nothing.

Love was without beginning, is, and shall be without ending.

God is nearer to us than our own spirit

The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Between God and the soul there is no between.

He did not say: You will not be assailed, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted, but he did said: You will not be overcome.

When I was thirty years old and a half, God sent me a bodily sickness, in which I lay three days and three nights; and on the fourth night I took all my rites of Holy Church, and weened not to have lived till day.

As truly as God is our Father, so truly God is our Mother.

Be a Gardener. Dig a ditch. Toil and sweat. And turn the earth upside down. And seek the deepness. And water plants in time. Continue this labor. And make sweet floods to run, and noble and abundant fruits to spring. Take this food and drink, and carry it to God as your true worship.

Where do we begin? Begin with the heart.

All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

Lord Jesus, I have heard you say: 'Sin is necessary but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well'.

My, how busy we become when we lose sight of how God loves us.

For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it.

Cheerful givers do not count the cost of what they give.

That love of God is hard and marvelous. It cannot and will not be broken because of our sins.

Until I am essentially united with God, I can never have full rest or real happiness.

But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is necessary for me, answered and said: It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome.

God loved us before he made us; and his love has never diminished and never shall.

Our Lord is the ground from whom our prayer grows and in his love and grace he himself gives us our prayers.

All will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.

And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck, but everything by God's wise providence. If it seems to be accident or luck from our point of view, our blindness and lack of foreknowledge is the cause; for matters that have been in God's foreseeing wisdom since before time began befall us suddenly, all unawares; and so in our blindness and ignorance we say that this is accident or luck, but to our Lord God it is not so.

This is our Lord's will... that our prayer and our trust be, alike, large.

I was wholly at peace, at ease and at rest, so that there was nothing upon earth which could have afflicted me. This lasted for a time, and then I was changed ... I felt there was no ease or comfort for me except faith, hope and love, and truly I felt very little of this. And then presently God gave me again comfort and rest for my soul ... And then again I felt the pain, and then afterwards the delight and joy, now the one and now the other, again and again, I suppose about twenty times.

For here we are so blind and foolish that we never seek God until he, of his goodness, shows himself to us. It is when we do see something of him by his grace that we are stirred by that same grace to seek him, and with earnest longing to see still more of his blessedness. So I saw him and sought him; I had him and wanted him. It seems to me that this is and should be an experience common to us all.

This is our Lord’s will, that our prayer and our trust be both alike large. For if we trust not as much as we pray, we do not full worship to our Lord in our prayer, and also we tarry and pain our self. The cause is, as I believe, that we know not truly that our Lord is Ground on whom our prayer springeth; and also that we know not that it is given us by the grace of His love. For if we knew this, it would make us to trust to have, of our Lord’s gift, all that we desire. For I am sure that no man asketh mercy and grace with true meaning, but if mercy and grace be first given to him.

Prayer unites the soul to God.

He [Jesus] did not say, 'You will never have a rough passage, you will never be over-strained, you will never feel uncomfortable,' but he did say, 'You will never be overcome.

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything. God is the ground, the substance, the teaching, the teacher, the purpose, and the reward for which every soul labors.

Our life is all grounded and rooted in love, and without love we may not live.

Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and from these two comes a third, a holy and wonderful delight in God, who is love.

God, of thy goodness, give me Thyself; for Thou art enough for me, and I can ask for nothing less that can be full honor to Thee. And if I ask anything that is less, ever Shall I be in want, for only in Thee have I all.

... so our customary practice of prayer was brought to mind: how through our ignorance and inexperience in the ways of love we spend so much time on petition. I saw that it is indeed more worthy of God and more truly pleasing to him that through his goodness we should pray with full confidence, and by his grace cling to him with real understanding and unshakeable love, than that we should go on making as many petitions as our souls are capable of.

Prayer is the deliberate and persevering action of the soul. It is true and enduring, and full of grace. Prayer fastens the soul to God and makes it one with God's will.

But for I am a woman should I therefore live that I should not tell you the goodness of God?

Our Savior is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come.

The fruit and the purpose of prayer is to be oned with and like God in all things.

Cheerful givers do not count the cost of what they give. Their hearts are set on pleasing and cheering the person to whom the gift is given.

When we, by the working of mercy and grace, be made meek and mild, we are fully safe; suddenly is the soul oned to God when it is truly peaced in itself: for in Him is found no wrath.

Pray, even if you feel nothing, see nothing. For when you are dry, empty, sick or weak, at such a time is your prayer most pleasing to God, even though you may find little joy in it. This is true of all believing prayer.

The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything.

He that made all things for love, by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep them without end.

We are in God and God whom we do not see is in us.

...the goodness of God is the highest object of prayer and it reaches down to our lowest need.