Teresa of Ávila Quotes

134 Sourced Quotes

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.

Teresa of Ávila
I had a father and mother, who were devout and feared God. Our Lord also helped me with His grace. All this would have been enough to make me good, if I had not been so wicked.

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

Teresa of Ávila
I have always had this failing — that I cannot explain myself, as I have said, except at the cost of many words.

Teresa of Ávila
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.

Teresa of Ávila
True perfection consists in the love of God and our neighbour, and the better we keep both these commandments, the more perfect we shall be.

Teresa of Ávila
However many years life might last, no one could ever wish for a better friend than God.

Teresa of Ávila
What friends or kindred can be so close and intimate as the powers of our soul, which, whether we will or no, must ever bear us company?

Teresa of Ávila
Our goodness derives not from our capacity to think but to love.

Teresa of Ávila
Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee:
All thing pass;
God never changes.
Patience attains
All that it strives for.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.

Teresa of Ávila
Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God, for, as He has told us, He created us in His own image and likeness.

Teresa of Ávila
Blessed be He, Who came into the world for no other purpose than to suffer.

Teresa of Ávila
What a miserable life is this! There is no happiness that is secure and nothing that does not change.

Teresa of Ávila
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.

Teresa of Ávila
Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything.

Teresa of Ávila
Every part of the journey is of importance to the whole.

Teresa of Ávila
I had many friends to help me to fall; but as to rising again, I was so much left to myself, that I wonder now I was not always on the ground. I praise God for His mercy; for it was He only Who stretched out His hand to me. May He be blessed for ever! Amen.

Teresa of Ávila
I once heard a spiritual man say that he was not so much astonished at the things done by a soul in mortal sin as at the things not done by it. May God, in his mercy, deliver us from such great evil, for there is nothing in the whole of our lives that so thoroughly deserves to be called evil as this, since it brings endless and eternal evils in its train.

Teresa of Ávila
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.

Teresa of Ávila
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.

Teresa of Ávila
The most potent and acceptable prayer is the prayer that leaves the best effects. I don't mean it must immediately fill the soul with desire... The best effects are those that are followed up by actions-when the soul not only desires the honor of God, but really strives for it.

Teresa of Ávila
Let there be no disappointment when obedience keeps you busy in outward tasks. If it sends you to the kitchen, remember that the Lord walks among the pots and pans.

Teresa of Ávila
I am afraid that if we begin to put our trust in human help, some of our Divine help will fail us.

Teresa of Ávila
Jacob did not cease to be a Saint because he had to attend to his flocks.

Teresa of Ávila
Souls without prayer are like bodies, palsied and lame, having hands and feet they cannot use.

Teresa of Ávila
As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are — those are things which we seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty.

Teresa of Ávila
Untilled soil, however fertile it may be, will bear thistles and thorns; and so it is with man's mind.

Teresa of Ávila
I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself.

Teresa of Ávila
I say the same of humility and of all the virtues; the wiles of the devil are terrible, he will run a thousand times round hell if by so doing he can make us believe that we have a single virtue which we have not. And he is right, for such ideas are very harmful, and such imaginary virtues, when they come from this source, are never unaccompanied by vainglory; just as those which God gives are free both from this and from pride.

Teresa of Ávila
I have often thought with wonder of the great goodness of God; and my soul has rejoiced in the contemplation of His great magnificence and mercy. May He be blessed for ever! For I see clearly that He has not omitted to reward me, even in this life, for every one of my good desires.

Teresa of Ávila