Teresa of Ávila Quotes

Be assured that the more progress you make in loving your neighbor, the greater will be your love for God.

by committing a mortal sin, instead of seeking to please God, it prefers to gratify the devil, the prince of darkness, and so comes to share his blackness.

A pobreza é um bem que encerra todos os bens do mundo. É uma grande soberania; confirmo que se assenhoreia de todos os bens quem nenhum caso faz de os deixar.

São terríveis os ardis e manhas do demônio para que as almas não se conheçam nem compreendam seus caminhos.

it has acquired prudence and discretion and orders its life well. Its limitations are those of vision: it has not yet experienced to the full the inspiring force of love. It has not made a full self-oblation, a total self-surrender. Its love is still governed by reason, and so its progress is slow.

His secrets are hidden deep; but all that he does will be best for us, without the slightest doubt.

True spirituality breaks down the walls of our souls and lets in not just heaven, but the whole world.

But she evidently believes that, generally speaking, infused contemplation is accessible to any Christian who has the resolution to do all that in him lies towards obtaining it.

He always gives us much more than we deserve by granting us a spiritual sweetness much greater than we can obtain from the pleasures and distractions of this life.

¡Oh gran ganancia, no querer ganar por nuestro parecer para no temer pérdida, pues nunca permite Dios la tenga el bien mortificado, sino para ganar más!

Alma mía, toma la cruz con gran consuelo, que ella sola es el camino para el cielo.

I do not need to court you with great thoughts or profound insights, for the good of my soul consists not in thinking much, but in loving much.

For the devil does not allow a single bad habit to disappear and the very weakness of our mortal nature destroys the virtues in us.

matters. Do you think, my daughters, that it is an easy matter to have to do business with the world, to live in the world, to engage in the affairs of the world, and, as I have said, to live as worldly men do, and yet inwardly to be strangers to the world, and enemies of the world, like persons who are in exile — to be, in short, not men but angels?

Dime gran fatiga, y como si yo pudiera algo o fuera algo, lloraba con el Señor y le suplicaba remediase tanto mal.