Teresa of Avila Quotes - Page 11

O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it.

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

Lord, how Thou dost afflict Thy lovers!

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

What friends or kindred can be so close and intimate as the powers of our soul, which, whether we will or no, must ever bear us company?

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.

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

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

Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul: it seems that no other name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus was fixed and embedded in his heart.

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

I have often thought with wonder of the great goodness of God; and my soul has rejoiced in the contemplation of His great magnificence and mercy. May He be blessed for ever! For I see clearly that He has not omitted to reward me, even in this life, for every one of my good desires.

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

My father was a man of great charity towards the poor, and compassion for the sick, and also for servants; so much so, that he never could be persuaded to keep slaves, for he pitied them so much: and a slave belonging to one of his brothers being once in his house, was treated by him with as much tenderness as his own children.

The custom of speaking to God Almighty as freely as with a slave - caring nothing whether the words are suitable or not, but simply saying the first thing that comes to mind from being learnt by rote by frequent repetition - cannot be called prayer: God grant that no Christian may address Him in this manner.

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

When I took the habit, the Lord immediately showed me how He favours those who do violence to themselves in order to serve Him. No one saw what I endured... At the moment of my entrance into this new state I felt a joy so great that it has never failed me even to this day; and God converted the dryness of my soul into a very great tenderness.

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.

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

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

Patient endurance / Attaineth to all things.

The devil put before me that I could not endure the trials of the religious life, because of my delicate nurture. I defended myself against him by alleging the trials which Christ endured, and that it was not much for me to suffer something for His sake; besides, He would help me to bear it.

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

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

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

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.