List of Teresa of Avila Quotes

Let Him Never Cease From Prayer Who Has Once Begun It, Be His Life Ever So Wicked; For Prayer Is The Way To Amend It, And Without Prayer Such Amendment Will Be Much More Difficult.

The Hour I Have Long Wished For Is Now Come.

Alas, O Lord, To What A State Dost Thou Bring Those Who Love Thee!

God Never Changes; Patient Endurance Attains To All Things; Who God Possesses In Nothing Is Wanting; Alone God Suffices.

While The Soul Is In Mortal Sin, Nothing Can Profit It; None Of Its Good Works Merit An Eternal Reward, Since They Do Not Proceed From God As Their First Principle, And By Him Alone Is Our Virtue Real Virtue.

Patient Endurance Attends To All Things.

When I Took The Habit, The Lord Immediately Showed Me How He Favours Those Who Do Violence To Themselves In Order To Serve Him. No One Saw What I Endured... At The Moment Of My Entrance Into This New State I Felt A Joy So Great That It Has Never Failed Me Even To This Day; And God Converted The Dryness Of My Soul Into A Very Great Tenderness.

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.

Holy Church-that Mother Who Is Also A Queen Because She Is A King's Bride.

Who God Possesseth In Nothing Is Wanting; Alone God Sufficeth.

There Was The Torture Of Sermons, And That Not A Slight One, For I Was Very Fond Of Them.

It Will Be As Well, I Think, To Explain These Locutions Of God, And To Describe What The Soul Feels When It Receives Them.

Let Us Consider The Glorious Saint Paul: It Seems That No Other Name Fell From His Lips Than That Of Jesus, Because The Name Of Jesus Was Fixed And Embedded In His Heart.

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.

A Soul Which Gives Itself To Prayer, Either Much Or Little, Should On No Account Be Kept Within Narrow Bounds.

The Same Know Contentment, For Beauty Is Their Lover, And Beauty Is Never Absent From This World.

We Cannot Know Whether We Love God, Although There May Be Strong Reason For Thinking So; But There Can Be No Doubt About Whether We Love Our Neighbor Or Not. Be Sure That, In Proportion As You Advance In Fraternal Charity, You Are Increasing Your Love Of God, For His Majesty Bears So Tender An Affection For Us That I Cannot Doubt He Will Repay Our Love For Others By Augmenting, And In A Thousand Different Ways, That Which We Bear For Him.

Patience Attains All That It Strives For. He Who Has God Finds He Lacks Nothing: God Alone Suffices.

Hope, O My Soul, Hope. Watch Carefully, For Everything Passes Quickly, Even Though Your Impatience Turns A Very Short Time Into A Long One.

There Is More Security In Self-denial, Mortification, And Other Like Virtues, Than In An Abundance Of Tears.

It Is Only Mercenaries Who Expect To Be Paid By The Day.

The True Penance Comes When God Takes Away The Soul's Health And Strength For Doing Penance. Even Though I Have Mentioned Elsewhere The Great Pain This Lack Causes, The Pain Is Much More Intense Here. All These Things Must Come To The Soul From Its Roots, From Where It Is Planted.

Patient Endurance / Attaineth To All Things.

The Devil Put Before Me That I Could Not Endure The Trials Of The Religious Life, Because Of My Delicate Nurture. I Defended Myself Against Him By Alleging The Trials Which Christ Endured, And That It Was Not Much For Me To Suffer Something For His Sake; Besides, He Would Help Me To Bear It.