If you purify your soul of attachment to and desire for things, you will understand them spiritually. If you deny your appetite for them, you will enjoy their truth, understanding what is certain in them.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Soul
Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with him continually, and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Religion, Inaction, Procrastination, Prayer, Getting Going
In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Soul
He who interrupts the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Spirituality, Spirit
The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Soul
It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Silence
Wherefore a man can know nothing by himself, save after a natural manner, which is only that which he attains by means of the senses. For this cause he must have the phantasms and the forms of objects present in themselves and in their likenesses; otherwise it cannot be, for, as philosophers say: Ab objecto et potentia paritur notitia. That is: From the object that is present and from the faculty, knowledge is born in the soul. Wherefore, if one should speak to a man of things which he has never been able to understand, and whose likeness he has never seen, he would have no more illumination from them whatever than if naught had been said of them to him.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Knowledge
In tribulation immediately draw near to God with confidence, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Confidence
Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Love
Abide in peace, banish cares, take no account of all that happens, and you will serve God according to his good pleasure and rest in him.
—John of the Cross
Topics: God
In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.
—John of the Cross
Topics: Love
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Teresa of Avila Spanish Carmelite Nun, Mystic
- Thomas Aquinas Italian Catholic Priest
- Miguel de Cervantes Spanish Novelist
- Augustine of Hippo Roman-African Christian Philosopher
- Lope de Vega Spanish Playwright
- Sigrid Undset Norwegian Novelist
- Salvador Dali Spanish Painter
- Miguel de Unamuno Spanish Philosopher, Writer
- Jerome Greek Priest
- Bahya ibn Paquda Jewish Philosopher
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