St. Teresa of Avila Quotes

St. Teresa of Avila Quotes

It is love alone that gives worth to all things.

Oh my Lord! How true it is that whoever works for you is paid in troubles! And what a precious price to those who love you if we understand its value.

For if the will has nothing to employ it and love has no present object with which to busy itself, the soul finds itself without either support or occupation, its solitude and aridity cause it great distress and its thoughts involve it in the severest conflict.

Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.

You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.

Keep this in mind, for it is very important advice, so do not neglect it until you find you have such a fixed determination not to offend the Lord that you would rather lose a thousand lives and be persecuted by the whole world, than commit one mortal sin, and until you are most careful not to commit venial sins.'

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

There is more value in a little study of humility and in a single act of it than in all the knowledge in the world.

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.

God save us from gloomy saints!

'One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer.' 

We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to look upon Him present within us.

The devil frequently fills our thoughts with great schemes, so that instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve our Lord, we may rest satisfied with wishing to perform impossibilities.

It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.

I used to press this reason against myself: The trials and sufferings of living as a nun cannot be greater than those of purgatory, and I have well deserved to be in hell. It is not much to spend the rest of my life as if I were in purgatory, and then go straight to Heaven -- which was what I desired. I was more influenced by servile fear, I think, than by love, to enter religion.

Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything

Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end. 

God withholds Himself from no one who perseveres..

Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.

'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.'

It is of great importance, when we begin to practise prayer, not to let ourselves be frightened by our own thoughts.

May today there be peace within.  May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.  May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.  May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.  May you be content knowing that you are a child of God.  Let this presence settle into our bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, danse, praise and love.  It is there for each and everyone of you.

The closer one approaches to God, the simpler one becomes.

Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.

This Beloved of ours is merciful and good. Besides, he so deeply longs for our love that he keeps calling us to come closer. This voice of his is so sweet that the poor soul falls apart in the face of her own inability to instantly do whatever he asks of her. And so you can see, hearing him hurts much more than not being able to hear him… For now, his voice reaches us through words spoken by good people, through listening to spiritual talks, and reading sacred literature. God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illnesses and suffering and through sorrow he calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer he calls to us. No matter how halfhearted such insights may be, God rejoices whenever we learn what he is trying to teach us.

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

We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.

We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.

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