Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about William Law
William Law Quotes
51 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
This, and this alone, is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of piety and devotion to God.
William Law
Source
Report...
What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly?
William Law
Source
Report...
No education can be of true advantage to young women but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of living, in exact modesty of dress.
William Law
Source
Report...
Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state.
William Law
Source
Report...
Perfection does not consist in any singular state or condition of life, or in any particular set of duties, but in holy and religious conduct of ourselves in every state of Life.
William Law
Source
Report...
Nothing harms or destroys us but the wrong use of that liberty of choice which God has entrusted to us.
William Law
Source
Report...
Whatever littleness and vanity is to be observed in the minds of women, it is, like the cruelty of butchers, a temper that is wrought into them by that life which they are taught and accustomed to lead.
William Law
Source
Report...
Where has the Scripture made merit the rule or measure of charity?.
William Law
Source
Report...
The obedience of men is to imitate the obedience of angels, and rational beings on earth are to live unto God, as rational beings in heaven live unto Him.
William Law
Source
Report...
They, therefore, who are hasty in their devotions and think a little will do, are strangers both to the nature of devotion and the nature of man; they do not know that they are to learn to pray, and that prayer is to be learnt as they learn other things, by frequency, constancy, and perseverance.
William Law
Source
Report...
This is the state of all creatures, whether men or angels; as they make not themselves, so they enjoy nothing from themselves; if they are great, it must be only as great receivers of the gifts of God; their power can only be so much of the divine power acting in them; their wisdom can be only so much of the divine wisdom shining within them; and their light and glory, only so much of the light and glory of God shining upon them.
William Law
Source
Report...
Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.
William Law
Source
Report...
This new birth in Christ, thus firmly believed and continually desired, will do everything that thou wantest to have done in thee, it will dry up all the springs of vice, stop all the workings of evil in thy nature, it will bring all that is good into thee, it will open all the gospel within thee, and thou wilt know what it is to be taught of God.
William Law
Source
Report...
He that rightly understands the reasonableness and Excellency of charity will know that it can never be excusable to waste any of our money in pride and folly.
William Law
Source
Report...
Let every creature have your love. Love, with its fruits of meekness, patience, and humility, is all that we can wish for ourselves and our fellow creatures. For this is to live in God, united with him, both for time and eternity. To desire to communicate good to everyone, in the degree that we can and to which each person is capable of receiving from us, is a divine temper, for thus God stands unchangeably disposed towards the whole creation.
William Law
Source
Report...
If, therefore, a man will so live as to show that he feels and believes the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity, he must live above the world.
William Law
Source
Report...
All the wants which disturb human life, which make us uneasy to ourselves, quarrelsome with others, and unthankful to God, which weary us in vain labors and foolish anxieties, which carry us from project to project, from place to place in a poor pursuit of we don't know what, are the wants which neither God, nor nature, nor reason hath subjected us to, but are solely infused into us by pride, envy, ambition, and covetousness.
William Law
Source
Report...
Wherever thou goest, whatever thou dost at home, or abroad, in the field, or at church, do all in a desire of union with Christ, in imitation of His tempers and inclinations, and look upon all as nothing, but that which exercises, and increases the spirit and life of Christ in thy soul.
William Law
Source
Report...
The eyes of our souls only then begin to see when our bodily eyes are closing.
William Law
Source
Report...
The sun meets not the springing bud that stretches towards him with half the certainty that God, the source of all good, communicates himself to the soul that longs to partake of him.
William Law
Source
Report...
When therefore the first spark of a desire after God arises in thy soul, cherish it with all thy care, give all thy heart into it; it is nothing less than a touch of the divine loadstone, that is to draw thee out of the vanity of time, into the riches of eternity.
William Law
Source
Report...
A revelation is to be received as coming from God, not because of its internal excellence, or because we judge it to be worthy of God; but because God has declared it to be His in as plain and undeniable a manner as He has declared creation and providence to be His.
William Law
Source
Report...
Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life.
William Law
Source
Report...
All our salvation consists in the manifestation of the nature, life and spirit of Jesus Christ in our inward new man. This alone is Christian redemption, this alone delivers from the guilt and power of sin, this alone redeems and renews.
William Law
Source
Report...
You have no questions to ask of any body, no new way that you need inquire after; no oracle that you need to consult; for whilst you shut yourself up in patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God, you are in the very arms of Christ, your heart is His dwelling-place, and He lives and works in you.
William Law
1
2
3
Quote of the day
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
William Hazlitt
William Law
Born:
1686
Died:
April 9, 1761
(aged 75)
Bio:
William Law was a Church of England priest who lost his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge when his conscience would not allow him to take the required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, George I.
Known for:
A Serious Call Toa Devout and Holy Life (1729)
The power of the spirit
The spirit of prayer
The way to divine knowledge (1752)
The spirit of love (1752)
Most used words:
life
man
christians
common
nature
happy
state
lives
light
temper
spirit
heavenly
god
wisdom
William Law on Wikipedia
William Law works on Gutenberg Project
William Law works on Wikisource
Suggest an edit or a new quote
English Theologian Quotes
Theologian Quotes
17th-century Theologian Quotes
Related People
Jakob Böhme
German Theologian
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes