Teresa of Avila Quotes About Soul
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Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.
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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.
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Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour.
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The soul of the just man is but a paradise, in which, God tells us, He takes His delight. What do you imagine, must that dwelling be in which a King so mighty, so wise, and so pure, containing in Himself all good, can delight to rest? 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 told us, He created us in his own image and likeness.
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We know only that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are, those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty.
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As God's beloved, I live in the bliss knowing that my soul is never separated from Him, for I learn to know Her in all that I see. God dissolved my mind-my separation. I cannot describe now my intimacy with Him.
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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?
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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.
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The most potent and acceptable prayer is the prayer that leaves the best effects. I don't mean it must immediately fill the soul with desire . . . The best effects are those that are followed up by actions-when the soul not only desires the honor of God, but really strives for it.
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Souls without prayer are like bodies, palsied and lame, having hands and feet they cannot use.
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Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life. . . . If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.
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If we do not use great care to mortify our will, there are many things which can deprives us of the holy freedom of spirit that we are seeking in order to fly more freely to our Creator, without always being bogged down with the clay of this earth. Moreover, there can never be solid virtue in a soul that is attached to its own will.
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Souls who do not practice prayer are like people whose limbs are paralyzed.
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It is certain that the love of God does not consist in this sweetness and tenderness which we for the most part desire; but rather in serving Him in justice, fortitude, and humility. His Majesty seeks and loves courageous souls.
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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.
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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.
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A soul which gives itself to prayer, either much or little, should on no account be kept within narrow bounds.
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Hope, O my soul, hope. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience turns a very short time into a long one.
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With all this wide and beautiful creation before me, the restless soul longs to enjoy its liberty and rest beyond its bound.
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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.
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True love grows by sacrifice and the more thoroughly the soul rejects natural satisfaction the stronger and more detached its tenderness becomes.
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Half-instructed confessors have done my soul great harm; for I could not always have such learned ones as I would have desired. They certainly did not wish to deceive me, but the fact was that they knew no better. Of something which was a venial sin, they said it was no sin, and out of a very grave mortal sin they made a venial sin. This has done me such harm, that my speaking here of so great an evil, as a warning to others, will be readily understood.
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It is impossible for human tongue to exaggerate the riches which a vision from God brings to the soul: it even bestows health and refreshment on the body.
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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.
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Our soul can find in the Blessed Sacrament all the joys and consolations it desires.
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All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.
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It constantly happens that the Lord permits a soul to fall so that it may grow humbler.
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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.
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It will be as well, I think, to explain these locutions of God, and to describe what the soul feels when it receives them.
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Humility does not disturb or disquiet or agitate, however great it may be; it comes with peace, delight, and calm. . . . The pain of genuine humility doesn't agitate or afflict the soul; rather, this humility expands it and enables it to serve God more.
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