Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

Prayer is the key of perfection and of sovereign happiness; it is the efficacious means of getting rid of all vices and of acquiring all virtues; for the way to become perfect is to live in the presence of God.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
O my God, how true it is that we may have of Thy gifts and yet may be full of ourselves!

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
How can they be delivered from the life of self, who are not willing to abandon all their possessions? How can they believe themselves despoiled of all, who possess the greatest treasure under heaven? Do not oblige me to name it, but judge, if you are enlightened; there is one of them which is less than the other, which is lost before it, but which those who must lose everything have the greatest trouble in parting with.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
All consolation that does not come from God is but desolation; when the soul has learned to receive no comfort but in God only, it has passed beyond the reach of desolation.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
Self-seeking is the gate by which a soul departs from peace; and total abandonment to the will of God, that by which it returns.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
To rob God of nothing; to refuse Him nothing; to require of Him nothing; this is great perfection.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
The more wants we have, the further we are from God, and the nearer we approach him, the better can we dispense with everything that is not Himself.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
Let no one ask a stronger mark of an excellent love to God, than that we are insensible to our own reputation.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
The only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of the Eternal Word.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
He who has a pure heart will never cease to pray; and he who will be constant in prayer, shall know what it is to have a pure heart.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
I have never found any who prayed so well as those who had never been taught how. They who have no master in man, have one in the Holy Spirit.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
Oh, that we fully understood how very opposite our self-righteousness is to the designs of God!

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
Secrets of the incomprehensible wisdom of God, unknown to any besides Himself! Man, sprung up only of a few days, wants to penetrate, and to set bounds to it. Who is it that hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counselor?

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
Surrender yourselves then to be led and disposed of just as God pleases, with respect both to your outward and inward state.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
It is a great truth, wonderful as it is undeniable, that all our happiness—temporal, spiritual, and eternal — consists in one thing; namely, in resigning ourselves to God, and in leaving ourselves with Him, to do with us and in us just as He pleases.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
The soul seeks God by faith, not by the reasonings of the mind and labored efforts, but by the drawings of love; to which inclinations God responds, and instructs the soul, which co-operates actively. God then puts the soul in a passive state where He accomplishes all, causing great progress, first by way of enjoyment, then by privation, and finally by pure love.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
True simplicity regards God alone; it has its eye fixed upon Him, and is not drawn toward self; and it is as pleased to say humble as great things. All our uneasy feelings and reflections arise from self-love, whatever appearance of piety they may assume. The lack of simplicity inflicts many wounds. Go where we will, if we remain in ourselves, we shall carry everywhere our sins and our distresses. If we would live in peace, we must lose sight of self, and rest in the infinite and unchangeable God.

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
We must surrender our whole being to Christ Jesus, and cease to live any longer in ourselves, that He may become our life; that being dead, " our life may be hid with Christ in God."

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon