Saint Archives - Pictorial Quotes

If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

Swami Vivekananda

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.

Swami Vivekananda

May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians give strength to you to carry out your noble idea.

Swami Vivekananda

Arise! Awake! and stop not until the goal is reached.

Swami Vivekananda

God is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life.

Swami Vivekananda

In one word, this ideal is that you are divine.

Swami Vivekananda

External nature is only internal nature writ large.

Swami Vivekananda

The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them.

Swami Vivekananda

Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.

Swami Vivekananda

All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

Swami Vivekananda

You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

Swami Vivekananda

Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

Swami Vivekananda

As different streams having different sources all mingle their waters in the sea, so different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to God.

Swami Vivekananda

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin; to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

Swami Vivekananda

The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.

Swami Vivekananda

The Vedanta recognizes no sin it only recognizes error. And the greatest error, says the Vedanta is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature, and that you have no power and you cannot do this and that.

Swami Vivekananda

If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.

Swami Vivekananda

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him – that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

Swami Vivekananda

That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.

Swami Vivekananda

The will is not free – it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect – but there is something behind the will which is free.

Swami Vivekananda

Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.

Swami Vivekananda

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

Swami Vivekananda

When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state.

Swami Vivekananda

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

Swami Vivekananda

The essence of spirituality is the duty to live to its full the glorious destiny of being human. The purpose of religion should be to empower all people in this adventure of living with dignity and fulfillment.

Swami Agnivesh

The religions of the world must be assessed, not on the basis of their convoluted theologies, but in terms of the extent to which they serve as forces of liberation and empowerment.

Swami Agnivesh

Spiritually, life is a festival, a celebration. Joy is of the essence of life;

Swami Agnivesh

All human beings have a right, and duty, to be joyful. Anything that thwarts this spiritual human right goes against the very purpose of human being. Spirituality mandates us to wage a relentless war to eradicate these forces of oppression and disempowerment.

Swami Agnivesh

First, we must liberate people from religion, as religion is understood and practiced today. Second, we must effect a paradigm shift from religiosity to shared spirituality.

Swami Agnivesh

Peace among religions is a precondition for world peace. But religions, as religions, can never be at peace with each other. To enable religions to be instruments for peace we need to enable, first, religious communities to progress from religion to spirituality. For the world order to be one of peace and justice, for the global village to be a theater of right livelihood, it is imperative that a new and proactive spiritual vision commensurate to the challenges of the emerging world order be enunciated without delay. The challenge is to make “right livelihood” a universal goal. Recognizing this value in a symbolic way through an award like this is a significant step in the right direction. This is not, however, our journey’s end. We must not rest until right livelihood is within reach of every human being upon this earth we love and cherish. We all have a role to play in achieving this goal.

Swami Agnivesh

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.

Swami Vivekananda

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

Swami Vivekananda

Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

Swami Vivekananda

The custom of speaking to God Almighty as freely as with a slave – caring nothing whether the words are suitable or not, but simply saying the first thing that comes to mind from being learnt by rote by frequent repetition – cannot be called prayer: God grant that no Christian may address Him in this manner.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

In a state of grace, the soul is like a well of limpid water, from which flow only streams of clearest crystal. Its works are pleasing both to God and man, rising from the River of Life, beside which it is rooted like a tree.

Saint Teresa of Avila

A soul which gives itself to prayer, either much or little, should on no account be kept within narrow bounds.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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?

Saint Teresa of Avila

What value is there in faith without works? And what are they worth if they are not united to the merits of Jesus Christ, our only good?

Saint Teresa of Avila

Discontent with this world gives such a painful longing to quit it that, if the heart finds comfort, it is solely from the thought that God wishes it to remain here in banishment.

Saint Teresa of Avila

I was living an extremely burdensome life, because every time I prayed, I became more clearly aware of my faults. On the one hand, God was calling me. On the other, I was following the way of the world. Doing what God wanted made me happy; but I felt bound by the things of this world.

Saint Teresa of Avila

When the soul, through its own fault… becomes rooted in a pool of pitch-black, evil smelling water, it produces nothing but misery and filth.

Saint Teresa of Avila

I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

It is no small misfortune and disgrace that, through our own fault, we neither understand our nature nor our origin.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Whenever we think of Christ, we should recall the love that led Him to bestow on us so many graces and favors, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of His love; for love calls for love in return. Let us strive to keep this always before our eyes and to rouse ourselves to love Him.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

A beginner must look on himself as one setting out to make a garden for his Lord’s pleasure, on most unfruitful soil which abounds in weeds. His Majesty roots up the weeds and will put in good plants instead. Let us reckon that this is already done when the soul decides to practice prayer and has begun to do so.

Saint Teresa of Avila

If I should say anything that is not in conformity with what is held by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, it will be through ignorance and not through malice. This may be taken as certain, and also that, through God’s goodness, I am, and shall always be, as I always have been, subject to her.

Saint Teresa of Avila

If I were to give advice, I would say to parents that they ought to be very careful whom they allow to mix with their children when young; for much mischief thence ensues, and our natural inclinations are unto evil rather than unto good.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

My good works, however wretched and imperfect, have been made better and perfected by Him Who is my Lord: He has rendered them meritorious. As to my evil deeds and my sins, He hid them at once. The eyes of those who saw them, He made even blind; and He has blotted them out of their memory.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Those who give themselves to prayer should in a special manner have always a devotion to St. Joseph; for I know not how any man can think of the Queen of the angels, during the time that she suffered so much with the Infant Jesus, without giving thanks to St. Joseph for the services he rendered them then.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

How friendly all men would be one with another, if no regard were paid to honour and money! I believe it would be a remedy for everything.

Saint Teresa of Avila

If Christ Jesus dwells in a man as his friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend.

Saint Teresa of Avila

All blessings come to us through our Lord. He will teach us, for in beholding His life we find that He is the best example.

Saint Teresa of Avila

More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.

Saint Teresa of Avila

I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Do you think it is only a little thing to possess a house from which lovely things can be seen?

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

I don’t know what heavy penance I would not have gladly undertaken rather than practice prayer.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

May God protect me from gloomy saints.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Whoever has not begun the practice of prayer, I beg for the love of the Lord not to go without so great a good. There is nothing here to fear but only something to desire.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

My father was a man of great charity towards the poor, and compassion for the sick, and also for servants; so much so, that he never could be persuaded to keep slaves, for he pitied them so much: and a slave belonging to one of his brothers being once in his house, was treated by him with as much tenderness as his own children.

Saint Teresa of Avila

We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can – namely, surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us.

Saint Teresa of Avila

All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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.

Saint Teresa of Avila

God has been very good to me, for I never dwell upon anything wrong which a person has done, so as to remember it afterwards. If I do remember it, I always see some other virtue in that person.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds.

Saint Teresa of Avila

The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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

Saint Teresa of Avila

Anyone who truly loves God travels securely.

Saint Teresa of Avila

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

Saint Teresa of Avila

Don’t let your sins turn into bad habits.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Prayer is an act of love; words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love.

Saint Teresa of Avila

The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.

Saint Teresa of Avila

I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Pain is never permanent.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.

Saint Teresa of Avila

To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that.

Saint Teresa of Avila

O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it.

Saint Teresa of Avila

To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.

Saint Teresa of Avila

It is here, my daughters, that love is to be found – not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin. And believe me, although we may more often fail and commit small lapses, our gain will be incomparably the greater.

Saint Teresa of Avila

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

Saint Teresa of Avila

I most certainly believe that it is the gift of God that I am what I am. And so I dwell amongst barbarians, a proselyte and an exile, for the love of God.

Saint Patrick

Avarice is a deadly sin.

Saint Patrick

I was freeborn according to the flesh; I am born of a father who was a decurion, but I sold my noble rank – I blush not to state it, nor am I sorry – for the profit of others. In short, I am a slave in Christ to a foreign nation for the unspeakable glory of the eternal life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Saint Patrick

It was not any grace in me, but God that put this earnest care into my heart, that I should be one of the hunters or fishers whom long ago God foreshowed would come in the last days.

Saint Patrick

I see that already in this present world I am exalted above measure by the Lord. And I was not worthy nor such a one as that he should grant this to me, since I know most surely that poverty and affliction become me better than delights and riches.

Saint Patrick

On occasion, I used to give presents to the kings, besides the hire that I gave to to their sons who accompany me; and nevertheless, they seized me with my companions.

Saint Patrick

I have vowed to my God to teach the heathen, though I be despised by some.

Saint Patrick

The most High approveth not the gifts of the wicked.

Saint Patrick

He that offereth sacrifice of the goods of the poor is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presence of his father.

Saint Patrick

I am more afraid of those who are terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.

Saint Patrick

The Lord discovered to me a sense of my unbelief that, though late, I should remember my transgressions and that I should be converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God.

Saint Patrick

I only seek in my old age to perfect that which I had not before thoroughly learned in my youth, because my sins were a hindrance to me.

Saint Patrick

I plainly told them, ‘Be ye sincerely converted, and with your whole heart, to the Lord our God, for nothing is impossible to Him, that He may today send you food on your road, even until you are satisfied, because He has everywhere abundance.’ And, with God’s help, it was so done: Behold! A herd of swine appeared in the road before our eyes.

Saint Patrick

The Lord is greater than all: I have said enough.

Saint Patrick

I have a Creator who knew all things, even before they were made – even me, his poor little child.

Saint Patrick

I partly know why I have not led a perfect life like other believers. But I avow to my Lord, and I do not lie, that from the time when I first knew him, the love of God and the fear of him has grown in me from my youth so that I have, by the power of God, always till now kept the faith.

Saint Patrick

Let who will scoff and revile – I will not remain silent; neither will I conceal the signs and wonders which have been shown to me by the Lord, who knew all things even before the time of this world, many years before, just as they happened.

Saint Patrick

Sufficient for me is that honour which is not seen of men but is felt in the heart, as faithful is He who hath promised and who never lies.

Saint Patrick

I have had the good fortune through my God that I should never abandon his people whom I have acquired in the extremities of the earth.

Saint Patrick

To seek the highest good is to live well.

Saint Augustine

It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr.

Saint Augustine

What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.

Saint Augustine

It seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all.

Saint Augustine

The same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call ‘Christian’ the true religion which existed before.

Saint Augustine

Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in his compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall.

Saint Patrick

I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and despised in the eyes of many.

Saint Patrick

No one should ever say that it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small according to God’s good pleasure; but let this be your conclusion and let it so be thought, that – as is the perfect truth – it was the gift of God.

Saint Patrick

That which I have set out in Latin is not my words but the words of God and of apostles and prophets, who of course have never lied. He who believes shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be damned. God has spoken.

Saint Patrick

The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelieving heart, so that I should recall my sins.

Saint Patrick

Hear the other side.

Saint Augustine

He that is jealous is not in love.

Saint Augustine

There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.

Saint Augustine

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

Saint Augustine

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Saint Augustine

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

Saint Augustine

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.

Saint Augustine

We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.

Saint Augustine

We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.

Saint Augustine

If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.

Saint Augustine

The verdict of the world is conclusive.

Saint Augustine

This world’s a bubble.

Saint Augustine

Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.

Saint Augustine

Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.

Saint Augustine

Custom is second nature.

Saint Augustine

He who labours, prays.

Saint Augustine

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.

Saint Augustine

Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.

Saint Augustine

The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?

Saint Augustine

Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.

Saint Augustine

Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.

Saint Augustine

Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man’s wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.

Saint Augustine

There is no possible source of evil except good.

Saint Augustine

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

Saint Augustine

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.

Saint Augustine

If I am given a formula, and I am ignorant of its meaning, it cannot teach me anything, but if I already know it what does the formula teach me?

Saint Augustine

God is best known in not knowing him.

Saint Augustine

He fashioned hell for the inquisitive.

Saint Augustine

The soul, which is spirit, can not dwell in dust; it is carried along to dwell in the blood.

Saint Augustine

We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

Saint Augustine

The greatest evil is physical pain.

Saint Augustine

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Saint Augustine

If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.

Saint Augustine

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.

Saint Augustine

To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Saint Augustine

Punishment is justice for the unjust.

Saint Augustine

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

Saint Augustine

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.

Saint Augustine

Don’t you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?

Saint Augustine

A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.

Saint Augustine

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

Saint Augustine

The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.

Saint Augustine

No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.

Saint Augustine

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.

Saint Augustine

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.

Saint Augustine

Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.

Saint Augustine

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

Saint Augustine

I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.

Saint Augustine

If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don’t accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.

Saint Augustine

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

Saint Augustine

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.

Saint Augustine

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

Saint Augustine

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.

Saint Augustine

Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet.

Saint Augustine

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Saint Augustine

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

Saint Augustine

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.

Saint Augustine

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.

Saint Augustine

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.

Saint Augustine

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

Saint Augustine

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

Saint Augustine

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.

Saint Augustine

Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.

Saint Augustine

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

Saint Augustine

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

Saint Augustine

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

Saint Augustine

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

Saint Augustine

We cannot pass our guardian angel’s bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.

Saint Augustine

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

Saint Augustine

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.

Saint Augustine

The purpose of all wars, is peace.

Saint Augustine

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

Saint Augustine

The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light; although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.

Saint Augustine

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

Saint Augustine

My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed… And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.

Saint Augustine

Love is the beauty of the soul.

Saint Augustine

Love, and do what you like.

Saint Augustine

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.

Saint Augustine

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

Saint Augustine

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.

Saint Augustine

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Saint Augustine

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

Saint Augustine

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

Saint Augustine

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

Saint Augustine

The ordinary man considers solids and liquids and the energy manifestations of the material world to be vastly different, but the yogi sees them as various vibrations of the one cosmic light.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The man who has perceived God looks upon all types of men as dream motion-picture images, made of the relativities of the light of Cosmic Consciousness and the shadows of delusion.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The yogi should meditate on a firm seat, one that is clean – untainted by dirt or unspiritual vibrations of others. The thought or life force emanating from an individual saturates the objects he uses and his dwelling.

Paramahansa Yogananda

When the yogi starts to meditate, he must leave behind all sensory thoughts and all longings for possessions by quieting the waves of feeling (chitta), and the mental restlessness that arises therefrom, through the application of techniques that reinstate the controlling power of the untrammeled superconsciousness of the soul.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Careless indifference and bodily restlessness in meditation cause negative vibrations.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The sense of being a separate, egoic self begins with the astral, not with the physical, body. The soul is individualized spirit.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Whoever comes to me finds me a mirror to whatever is in his heart. Thus, I try to help him to see qualities in himself that he needs to overcome.

Paramahansa Yogananda

When your mind is fully withdrawn in superconsciousness, it becomes centered in the bliss of the spine. You are then in your ideational, or causal, body. That is the level of the soul.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Many great works of art, poetry, and music are inspired by astral memories. The desire to do noble, beautiful things here on Earth is also often a carryover of astral experiences between a person’s earth lives.

Paramahansa Yogananda

This life is not man’s own show; if he becomes personally and emotionally involved in the very complicated cosmic drama, he reaps inevitable suffering for having distorted the divine ‘plot.’

Paramahansa Yogananda

If one marries out of necessity, he will have to reincarnate to reach the point where he wants to live only for God.

Paramahansa Yogananda

No one can be a yogi, maintaining a state of mental equilibrium, free from inner involvement in planned desireful activities, unless he has renounced identification with his ego and its unsatisfiable lust for the fruits of actions.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Cosmic energy enters the body through the medulla and then passes to the cerebrum, in which it is stored or concentrated.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The physical ego, the active consciousness in man, should uplift its body-identified self into unity with the soul, its true nature; it should not allow itself to remain mired in the lowly delusive strata of the senses and material entanglement.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The physical ego serves as its own worst enemy when, by delusive material behavior, it eclipses its true nature as the ever blessed soul.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The Creator, in taking infinite pains to shroud with mystery His presence in every atom of creation, could have had but one motive – a sensitive desire that men seek Him only through free will.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Ignoring all prejudices of caste, creed, class, color, sex, or race, a swami follows the precepts of human brotherhood. His goal is absolute unity with Spirit.

Paramahansa Yogananda

A swami may conceivably follow only the path of dry reasoning, of cold renunciation; but a yogi engages himself in a definite, step-by-step procedure by which the body and mind are disciplined, and the soul liberated.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevent all men, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. Yoga cannot know a barrier of East and West any more than does the healing and equitable light of the sun.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The ideal of an all-sided education for youth had always been close to my heart. I saw clearly the arid results of ordinary instruction, aimed only at the development of body and intellect.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The yogi offers his labyrinthine human longings to a monotheistic bonfire dedicated to the unparalleled God. This is indeed the true yogic fire ceremony, in which all past and present desires are fuel consumed by love divine.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Introspection, or ‘sitting in the silence,’ is an unscientific way of trying to force apart the mind and senses, tied together by the life force. The contemplative mind, attempting its return to divinity, is constantly dragged back toward the senses by the life currents.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The Western day is indeed nearing when the inner science of self-control will be found as necessary as the outer conquest of nature. This new Atomic Age will see men’s minds sobered and broadened by the now scientifically indisputable truth that matter is in reality a concentrate of energy.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Man is important in one sense only. He was made in the image of God: That is his importance. He is not important for his body, ego, or personality. His constant affirmation of ego-consciousness is the source of all his problems.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Only the wise know just where predestination ends and free will begins. Meanwhile, you must keep on doing your best, according to your own clearest understanding. you must long for freedom as the drowning man longs for air. Without sincere longing, you will never find God.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Everything, at first, is an idea, a special creation.

Paramahansa Yogananda

It is wisest to be impartial. If you have health, but are attached to it, you will always be afraid of losing it. And if you fear that loss, but become ill, you will suffer. Why not remain forever joyful in the Self?

Paramahansa Yogananda

As often as you fail, get up and try again. God will never let you down, so long as you don’t let Him down, and so long as you make the effort.

Paramahansa Yogananda

All honest work is good work; it is capable of leading to self-development, provided the doer seeks to discover the inherent lessons and makes the most of the potentialities for such growth.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The man form is higher than the angel form; of all forms it is the highest. Man is the highest being in creation, because he aspires to freedom.

Paramahansa Yogananda

I find my earliest memories covering the anachronistic features of a previous incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of a distant life, a yogi amidst the Himalayan snows. These glimpses of the past, by some dimensionless link, also afforded me a glimpse of the future.

Paramahansa Yogananda

My keen love of travel was seldom hindered by Father. He permitted me, even as a mere boy, to visit many cities and pilgrimage spots.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Hypnotism is trespass into the territory of another’s consciousness. Its temporary phenomena have nothing in common with the miracles performed by men of divine realization.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Sri Yukteswar showed no special consideration to those who happened to be powerful or accomplished; neither did he slight others for their poverty or illiteracy. He would listen respectfully to words of truth from a child, and openly ignore a conceited pundit.

Paramahansa Yogananda

To allot God a secondary place in life was, to me, inconceivable. Though He is the sole Owner of the cosmos, silently showering us with gifts from life to life, one thing yet remains which He does not own, and which each human heart is empowered to withhold or bestow – man’s love.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Truth is exact correspondence with reality.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Remain calm, serene, always in command of yourself. You will then find out how easy it is to get along.

Paramahansa Yogananda

There are always two forces warring against each other within us.

Paramahansa Yogananda

There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.

Paramahansa Yogananda

The happiness of one’s own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one’s own happiness, the happiness of others.

Paramahansa Yogananda

A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; there, he is like butter on water and not like the easily-diluted milk of unchurned and undisciplined humanity.

Paramahansa Yogananda

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

Mother Teresa

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

Mother Teresa

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

Mother Teresa

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

Mother Teresa

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.

Mother Teresa

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.

Mother Teresa

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.

Mother Teresa

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.

Mother Teresa

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.

Mother Teresa

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

Mother Teresa

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

Mother Teresa

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

Mother Teresa

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.

Mother Teresa

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.

Mother Teresa

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.

Mother Teresa

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

Mother Teresa

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Mother Teresa

Peace begins with a smile.

Mother Teresa

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

Mother Teresa

Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.

Mother Teresa

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.

Mother Teresa

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.

Mother Teresa

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

Mother Teresa

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.

Mother Teresa

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

Mother Teresa

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Mother Teresa

Intense love does not measure, it just gives.

Mother Teresa

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

Mother Teresa

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.

Mother Teresa

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

Mother Teresa

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.

Mother Teresa

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

Mother Teresa

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.

Mother Teresa

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

Mother Teresa

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

Mother Teresa

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.

Mother Teresa

One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.

Joan of Arc

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

Joan of Arc

I am not afraid… I was born to do this.

Joan of Arc

Act, and God will act.

Joan of Arc

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

Joan of Arc

Of the love or hatred God has for the English, I know nothing, but I do know that they will all be thrown out of France, except those who die there.

Joan of Arc

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

Joan of Arc

I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin, or to be against God’s will.

Joan of Arc

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

Joan of Arc

King of England, and you, duke of Bedford, who call yourself regent of the kingdom of France… settle your debt to the king of Heaven; return to the Maiden, who is envoy of the king of Heaven, the keys to all the good towns you took and violated in France.

Joan of Arc

I was in my thirteenth year when I heard a voice from God to help me govern my conduct. And the first time I was very much afraid.

Joan of Arc

Since God had commanded it, it was necessary that I do it. Since God commanded it, even if I had a hundred fathers and mothers, even if I had been a King’s daughter, I would have gone nevertheless.

Joan of Arc

You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are; but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril.

Joan of Arc

About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing.

Joan of Arc

Holy humility confounds pride and all the men of this world and all things that are in the world.

Francis of Assisi

Holy charity confounds all diabolical and fleshly temptations and all fleshly fears.

Francis of Assisi

The Father willed that his blessed and glorious Son, whom he gave to us and who was born for us, should through his own blood offer himself as a sacrificial victim on the altar of the cross. This was to be done not for himself through whom all things were made, but for our sins.

Francis of Assisi

Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these, they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.

Francis of Assisi

We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather, we must be simple, humble and pure.

Francis of Assisi

We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God’s sake.

Francis of Assisi

Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is the day through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour; of You, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Francis of Assisi

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens, you have made them bright, precious and fair.

Francis of Assisi

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom You light the night, and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Francis of Assisi

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.

Francis of Assisi

Woe to those who die in mortal sin!

Francis of Assisi

Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.

Francis of Assisi

A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.

Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Francis of Assisi

If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.

Francis of Assisi

If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

Francis of Assisi

No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.

Francis of Assisi

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

Francis of Assisi

For it is in giving that we receive.

Francis of Assisi

It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.

Francis of Assisi

If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man’s conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.

Francis of Assisi

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

Francis of Assisi

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

Francis of Assisi

Where there is injury let me sow pardon.

Francis of Assisi

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.

Francis of Assisi

Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.

Francis of Assisi

I am the herald of the Great King.

Francis of Assisi

Great and glorious God, and Thou Lord Jesus, I pray you shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. Be found of me, Lord, so that in all things I may act only in accordance with Thy holy will.

Francis of Assisi

Holy wisdom confounds Satan and all his wickednesses.

Francis of Assisi

Pure, holy simplicity confounds all the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the flesh.

Francis of Assisi

Holy poverty confounds cupidity and avarice and the cares of this world.

Francis of Assisi

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

Francis of Assisi

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.

Francis of Assisi

You have reached end of the world!

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