Teresa of Avila Quotes - Page 8

Oh, how everything that is suffered with love is healed again!

The important thing is not to think much but to love much; do, then, whatever most arouses you to love.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

It is a great folly to be willing to violate the friendship of God, rather than the law of human friendship.

Our greatest gain is to lose the wealth that is of such brief duration and, by comparison with eternal things, of such little worth; yet we get upset about it and our gain turns to loss.

Humility, however deep it be, neither disquiets nor troubles nor disturbs the soul; it is accompanied by peace, joy and tranquillity.

It is impossible for human tongue to exaggerate the riches which a vision from God brings to the soul: it even bestows health and refreshment on the body.

Thank God for the things that I do not own.

God aids the valiant...both to you and to me He will give the help needed.

It is no small misfortune and disgrace that, through our own fault, we neither understand our nature nor our origin.

Everything seems to me to pass so quickly that we must concentrate on how to die rather than on how to live. How sweet it is to die if one has lived on the Cross with Christ.

You ought to make every effort to free yourselves even from venial sin, and to do what is most perfect.

With all this wide and beautiful creation before me, the restless soul longs to enjoy its liberty and rest beyond its bound.

It is a most certain truth, that the richer we see ourselves to be, confessing at the same time our poverty, the greater will be our progress, and the more real our humility.

Lord, how you afflict your lovers! But everything is small in comparison to what you give them afterwards.

For, as I said a little way back, perfect souls are in no way repelled by trials, but rather desire them and pray for them and love them. They are like soldiers: the more wars there are, the better they are pleased, because they hope to emerge from them with the greater riches.

There seem to me a great many blessings which come from true poverty and I should be sorry to be deprived of them.

To converse with You, O King of glory, no third person is needed, You are always ready in the Sacrament of the Altar to give audience to all. All who desire You always find You there, and converse with You face to face

Vocal prayer . . . must be accompanied by reflection. A prayer in which a person is not aware of Whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of Whom, I don't call prayer-however much the lips may move.

I often thought my constitution would never endure the work I had to do, (but) the Lord said to me: 'Daughter, obedience gives strength.'

As God's beloved, I live in the bliss knowing that my soul is never separated from Him, for I learn to know Her in all that I see. God dissolved my mind-my separation. I cannot describe now my intimacy with Him.

We may think it humility not to realize that the Lord is bestowing gifts upon us. Let us understand very, very clearly, how this matter stands. God gives us these gifts for no merit of ours. Let us be grateful to His Majesty for them, for, unless we recognize that we are receiving them, we shall not be aroused to love Him. And it is a most certain thing that, if we remember all the time that we are poor, the richer we find ourselves, the greater will be the profit that comes to us and the more genuine our humility.

Let him never cease from prayer, who has once begun to pray, even though his life is ever so bad. For prayer is the only way to amend one's life and without prayer it will never be mended. Let him not be tempted of the devil, as I was, to give up prayer on account of one's unworthiness. Let such a one rather believe that if he will only repent and pray, our Lord will still hear and answer.

God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.

We are always in the presence of God, yet it seems to me that those who pray are in His presence in a very different sense.