Christian Mystic Quotes on the Soul

The soul is symphonic.

Hildegard of Bingen (Quoted in Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen)

The soul that walks in love neither tires others nor grows tired.

John of the Cross (Sayings of Light and Love - 97)

Consider that God reigns only in the peaceful and disinterested soul.

John of the Cross (Sayings of Light and Love - 71)

A soul enkindled with love is a gentle, meek, humble, and patient soul.

John of the Cross (Sayings of Light and Love - 29)

God is never out of the soul: in which He dwelleth blissfully without end..

Julian of Norwich (Revelations of Divine Love: Chapter 55, c. 1395)

It is certain that if God is to be

born in the soul

it must turn back to eternity….

Johannes Tauler (Sermons)

I understood that true greatness is not found in a name but in the soul.

Thérèse of Lisieux (Story of a Soul - Chapter VI: A Pilgrimage to Rome, 1897)

We may never come to full knowing of God till we know first clearly our own Soul..

Julian of Norwich (Revelations of Divine Love: Chapter 56, c. 1395)

The greater perfection a soul aspires after, the more dependent it is upon Divine Grace.

Brother Lawrence (The Practice of The Presence of God - 4th Conversation)

God's greatest content and glory is to see the Soul in silence, desirous, humble, quiet, and resigned.

Miguel de Molinos (The Spiritual Guide - Book 1: Chapter 12, 1675)

The soul that desires God to surrender himself to it entirely must surrender itself entirely to him without keeping anything for itself.

John of the Cross (Sayings of Light and Love - 128)

This food of love draws the soul above distinction or difference, beyond resemblance to divine unity. This is what happens to the transfigured spirit.

Johannes Tauler (Sermons)

God is awakened in the soul. God breathes in the soul... Oh, how happy is this soul that is ever conscious of God resting and reposing within its breast!

John of the Cross (Living Flame of Love, 1585)

Since with all my soul I behold the face of my beloved, therefore all the beauty of his form is seen in me.

Gregory of Nyssa (Homilies on the Song of Songs)

THE third sort, which is as perfect Contemplation as can be had in this life, consisteth both in knowing and affecting; that is, in knowing and perfect loving of God, which is when a man’s soul is first reformed by perfection of virtues to the image of Jesus, and afterwards, when it pleaseth God to visit him, he is taken in from all earthly and fleshly affections, from vain thoughts and imaginings of all bodily creatures, and, as it were, much ravished and taken up from his bodily senses, and then by the grace of the Holy Ghost is enlightened, to see by his understanding Truth itself (which is God) and spiritual things, with a soft, sweet, burning love in God, so perfectly that he becometh ravished with His love, and so the soul for the time is become one with God, and conformed to the image of the Trinity.

The beginning of this Contemplation may be felt in this life, but the full perfection of it is reserved unto the bliss in heaven. Of this union and conforming to our Lord speaks St Paul thus: Qui adhaeret Deo unus spiritus est cum eo;5 that is to say, he who by ravishing of love is become united to God, God and that soul are not now two, but both one. And surely in this oneing consisteth the marriage which passeth betwixt God and the soul, that shall never be dissolved or broken.

Walter Hilton (The Ladder of Perfection - Book I: Chapter 8)