A Quote by John of the Cross

Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer and it will be opened to you in contemplation.

John of the Cross

Quote Topics

Contemplation Find Knock Meditation Opened Prayer Reading Seek Will

Quote Author

John of the Cross
Spanish - Saint
June 24, 1542 - December 14, 1591

Seek in reading and thou shalt find in meditation; knock in prayer and it shall be opened in contemplation.

John of the Cross

All good things require effort. That which is worth having will cost part of your physical being, your intellectual power, and your soul power—‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ (Matt. 7:7.) But you have to seek, you have to knock. On the other hand, sin thrusts itself upon you. It walks beside you, it tempts you, it entices, it allures. You do not have to put forth effort. … Evil seeks you, and it requires effort and fortitude to combat it. But truth and wisdom are gained only by seeking, by prayer, and by effort.

David O. McKay

No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.

C. S. Lewis

So I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.

Jesus Christ

Meditation is a sort of prayer and prayer is meditation. The highest meditation is to think of nothing. If you can remain one moment without thought, great power will come.

Swami Vivekananda

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.

C. S. Lewis

I knew that no matter what door you knock on in a Cretan village, it will be opened for you. A meal will be served in your honor, and you will sleep between the best sheets in the house. In Crete, the stranger is still the unknown god. Before him, all doors and all hearts are opened.

Nikos Kazantzakis

One form of prayer moves us particularly to take up the task of evangelization and to seek the good of others: it is the prayer of intercession. Let us peer for a moment into the heart of Saint Paul, to see what his prayer was like. It was full of people: "...I constantly pray with you in every one of my prayers for all of you... because I hold you in my heart" (Phil 1:4, 7). Here we see that intercessory prayer does not divert us from true contemplation, since authentic contemplation always has a place for others.

Pope Francis

Ask and it shall be given you; Seek and ye shall find; Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth; And he that seeketh, Findeth; and to him that knocketh It shall be opened. Aspire not to have more, but to be more.

Oscar Romero

The highest ideal man can form of his own powers, is that which he is destined to attain. Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. This is the law and the prophets. Knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find. It is demonstrated; it is a maxim.

Margaret Fuller

As we seek the Lord ever more diligently, we will surely find Him. We will see clearly that the Lord does not abandon His Church or His faithful Saints. Our eyes will be opened, and we will see Him open the windows of heaven and shower us with more of His light. We will find the spiritual strength to survive even during the darkest night.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all the things that the mind has put together. If you do that -perhaps you won't, but it doesn't matter, just listen to this- you will find that there is an extraordinary space in the mind, and that space is freedom. So you must demand freedom at the very beginning, and not just wait, hoping to have it at the end. You must seek out the significance of freedom in your work, in your relationships, in everything that you do. Then you will find that meditation is creation.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

You don't even have to be the one praying, but if you get around somebody who really know how to pray-prayer will lift you when you've fallen, prayer will catch you when you've lost your grip, prayer will stop you from going overboard, prayer will bring you out!

T. D. Jakes

All who ask receive, those who seek find, and to those who knock it shall be opened. Therefore, let us knock at the beautiful garden of Scripture. It is fragrant, sweet, and blooming with various sounds of spiritual and divinely inspired birds. They sing all around our ears, capture our hearts, comfort the mourners, pacify the angry, and fill us with everlasting joy.

John of Damascus

There are two kinds of reading, reading which is contemplation - even a kind of vision & reading for information. For the first only the best will do, for the rest - then one can let in anything one would like to read in the world.