Teresa of Ávila Quotes

Union is as if in a room there were two large windows through which the light streamed in it enters in diffrent places but it all becomes one.

Vivo sin vivir en mí... muero porque no muero. (I live without really being alive... I die because I am not dying.)

In order that love be fully satisfied, It is necessary that It lower Itself and that It lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire.

All the way to heaven is heaven.

I know a person who, though no poet, composed some verses in a very short time, which were full of feeling and admirably descriptive of her pain: they did not come from her understanding, but, in order the better to enjoy the bliss which came to her from such delectable pain, she complained of it to her God. She would have been so glad if she could have been cut to pieces, body and soul, to show what joy this pain caused her. What torments could have been set before her at such a time which she would not have found it delectable to endure for her Lord's sake?

All the trials we endure cannot be compared to these interior battles.

To reach something good, it is useful to have gone astray.

Mental prayer is, as I see it, simply a friendly intercourse and frequent solitary conversation with Him who, as we know, loves us.

Prayer and comfortable living are incompatible.

"At night a hooded monk passed by where there were no lamps.
I could not see his face. I only heard these words he kept repeating:
"Teach me, dear Lord, all that you know."
I knew instantly a great treasure had entered my soul."

Reflect carefully on this, for it is so important that I can hardly lay too much stress on it. Fix your eyes on the Crucified and nothing else will be of much importance to you.

I would write a thousand foolish things that one might be to the point, if only it might make us praise God more.

I used unexpectedly to experience a consciousness of the presence of God, or such a kind that I could not possibly doubt that He was within me or that I was wholly engulfed in Him. This was in no sense a vision: I believe it is called mystical theology. The soul is suspended in such a way that it seems to be completely outside itself. The will loves; the memory, I think, is almost lost; while the understanding, I believe, thought it is not lost, does not reason — I mean that it does not work, but is amazed at the extent of all it can understand; for God wills it to realize that it understands nothing of what His Majesty represents to it.

But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered. As I read, I began to call them together again and, as it were, laid a bait for my soul

Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience turns a very short time into a long one.