Teresa of Avila Quotes - Page 10

Do not be dismayed, daughters, at the number of things that you have to consider before setting out on this divine journey, which is the royal road to heaven. By taking this road we gain such precious treasures that it is no wonder if the cost seems to us a high one. The time will come when we shall realize that all we have paid has been nothing at all by comparison with the greatness of our prizes.

All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.

God, deliver me from sullen saints.

Never exaggerate, but express your feelings with moderation.

I don't know what heavy penance could have come to mind that frequently I would not have gladly undertaken rather than recollect myself in the practice of prayer.

Those who give themselves to prayer should in a special manner have always a devotion to St. Joseph; for I know not how any man can think of the Queen of the angels, during the time that she suffered so much with the Infant Jesus, without giving thanks to St. Joseph for the services he rendered them then.

Patience obtains everything.

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!

If I should say anything that is not in conformity with what is held by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, it will be through ignorance and not through malice. This may be taken as certain, and also that, through God's goodness, I am, and shall always be, as I always have been, subject to her.

His Majesty knows best what is suitable for us. There's no need for us to be advising Him about what He should give us, for He can rightly tell us that we don't know what we're asking for (cf. Mt. 20:22). The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer ? and don't forget this, because it's very important ? should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every possible effort to bring his will into conformity with God's will.

For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.

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

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

So dearly does His Majesty love us that He will reward our love for our neighbor by increasing the love which we bear to Himself, and that in a thousand ways.

I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.

To argue over who is the more noble is nothing more than to dispute whether dirt is better for making bricks or for making mortar.

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.

The most potent and acceptable prayer is the prayer that leaves the best effects. I don't mean it must immediately fill the soul with desire . . . The best effects are those that are followed up by actions-when the soul not only desires the honor of God, but really strives for it.

When the soul, through its own fault... becomes rooted in a pool of pitch-black, evil smelling water, it produces nothing but misery and filth.

We know only that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are, those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty.

Do you think it is only a little thing to possess a house from which lovely things can be seen?

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

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

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

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.