Teresa of Avila Quotes - Page 2

Out of suffering comes the serious mind; out of salvation, the grateful heart; out of endurance, fortitude; out of deliverance faith. Patient endurance attends to all things.

They deceive themselves who believe that union with God consists in ecstasies or raptures, and in the enjoyment of Him. For it consists in nothing except the surrender and subjection of our will - with our thoughts, words and actions - to the will of God.

Christ does not force our will, He only takes what we give Him. But He does not give Himself entirely until He sees that we yield ourselves entirely to Him.

It constantly happens that the Lord permits a soul to fall so that it may grow humbler.

Be happy when you are blamed and accused wrongly, for then you have the chance to see all the bitter, hostile or self-pitying responses that your sinful soul wants to spew out - as if these puny things could in any way defend you! Watch and see if any of these poisons come out of you when your spirit is pricked by an accusation. Only then can you see yourself as you are, and confess thy sin that is within you and forsake yourself again into the Lord's care.

Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life. . . . If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.

Truth suffers, but never dies.

As to the aridity you are suffering from, it seems to me our Lord is treating you like someone He considers strong: He wants to test you and see if you love Him as much at times of aridity as when He sends you consolations. I think this is a very great favor for God to show you.

There is no affliction, trial, or labor difficult to endure, when we consider the torments and sufferings which Our Lord Jesus Christ endured for us.

If we practice love of neighbor with great perfection, we will have done everything.

Never do anything which you could not do in the sight of all.

God is even kinder than you think.

However softly we speak, God is near enough to hear us.

In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.

Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Before prayer, endeavour to realise Whose Presence you are approaching and to Whom you are about to speak, keeping in mind Whom you are addressing. If our lives were a thousand times as long as they are we should never fully understand how we ought to behave towards God, before Whom the very Angels tremble, Who can do all He wills, and with Whom to wish is to accomplish.

Consider seriously how quickly people change, and how little trust is to be had in them; and hold fast to God, Who does not change.

He who has God finds he is lacking nothing.

After you die, you wear what you are.

If you seek to carry no other crosses but those whose reason you understand, perfection is not for you.

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.

About the injunction of the Apostle Paul that women should keep silent in church? Don't go by one text only.

How friendly we should all be with one another if nobody were interested in money and honor.

What a great favor God does to those He places in the company of good people!

God has been very good to me, for I never dwell upon anything wrong which a person has done, so as to remember it afterwards. If I do remember it, I always see some other virtue in that person.