Saint Catherine of Siena Quotes

Saint Catherine of Siena Quotes

Love transforms one into what one loves.

The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.

And the eternal Father said, 'And if anyone should ask me what this soul is, I would say: She is another me, made so by the union of love.'

Is God not more ready to forgive than we are to sin?

I have no other desire in this life save to see the honor of God, your peace, and the reformation of Holy Church, and to see the life of grace in every creature that hath reason in itself.

Do not be satisfied with little things, because God wants great things!

The soul cannot live without love. She always wants to love something because love is the stuff she is made of, and through love I created her.

Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.

It is not the hour to seek one's self for one's self, nor to flee pains in order to possess consolations; nay, it is the hour to lose one's self.

There will be love in proportion to faith and faith in proportion to love.

This (painful thing) happens to me with the permission of God, according to His providence, as in all things that befall me, all tribulation that He sends me He wills only one single thing: my sanctification.

[Sin is] loving what God hates, and hating what God loves.

Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.

What hast Thou taught me, O Love Uncreated? Thou hast taught me that I should bear patiently like a lamb, not only harsh words, but even blows harsh and hard, and injury and loss.

You, God, made yourself lowly and small to make us great!

You see this gentle loving Word born in a stable while Mary was on a journey, to show you pilgrims how you should be constantly born anew in the stable of self-knowledge, where by grace you will find me born in your soul.

Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

You know...that to join two things together there must be nothing between them or there cannot be a perfect fusion. Now realize that this is how God wants our soul to be, without any selfish love of ourselves or of others in between, just as God loves us without anything in between.

Love does not stay idle.

O You who are mad about Your creature! true God and true Man, You have left Yourself wholly to us, as food, so that we will not fall through weariness during our pilgrimage in this life, but will be fortified by You, celestial nourishment.

You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love.

If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire!

I turn me and lean against the most Holy Cross of Christ Crucified, and there I will fasten me.

Out of darkness is born the light.

I give spiritual consolation in prayer, now in one way, now in another. But it is not my intention that the soul should receive this consolation foolishly, paying more attention to the gift than to me.

All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, "I am the way."

To the servant of God ... every place is the right place, and every time is the right time. 

O unfathomable depth! O Deity eternal! O deep ocean! What more could You give me than to give me Yourself? You are an ever-burning Fire; You consume and are not consumed. By Your fire, You consume every trace of self-love in the soul. You are a Fire which drives away all coldness and illumines minds with its light, and with this light You have made known Your truth. Truly this light is a sea which feeds the soul until it is all immersed in You, O peaceful Sea, eternal Trinity! The water of this sea is never turbid; it never causes fear, but gives knowledge of the truth. This water is transparent and discloses hidden things; and a living faith gives such abundance of light that the soul almost attains to certitude in what it believes.

The human heart is always drawn by love.

In your nature, eternal Godhead, I shall come to know my nature. And what is my nature, boundless Love? It is fire, because you are nothing but a fire of love. And you have given humankind a share in this nature for by the fire of love you created us.

Oh, sweet and true knowledge, which dost carry with thee the knife of hate, and dost stretch out the hand of holy desire, to draw forth and kill with this hate the worm of self-love -- a worm that spoils and gnaws the root of our tree so that it cannot bear any fruit of life, but dries up, and its verdure lasts not! For if a man loves himself, perverse pride, head and source of every ill, lives in him, whatever his rank may be, prelate or subject. If he is lover of himself alone -- that is, if he loves himself for his own sake and not for God -- he cannot do other than ill, and all virtue is dead in him.

Be a vase, which thou fillest at the source and at the source dost drink from.

Although thou hadst drawn thy love from God, who is the Source of living water, didst thou not drink it continually in Him thy vase would remain empty.'

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