Alphonsus Liguori famous quotes

Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#And Love #Habit

It often happens that we pray God to deliver us from some dangerous temptation, and yet God does not hear us but permits the temptation to continue troubling us. In such a case, let us understand that God permits even this for our greater good. When a soul in temptation recommends itself to God, and by His aid resists, O how it then advances in perfection.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Prayer #Perfection #Temptation

When we have to reply to anyone who has insulted us, we should be careful to do it always with gentleness. A soft answer extinguishes the fire of wrath.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Fire #Wrath #Suffering

Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends. Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears - of everything that concerns you. Converse with Him confidently and frankly; for God is not wont to speak to a soul that does not speak to Him.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Soul #And Love #Doe

He who desires nothing but God is rich and happy.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Desire #Saint #Rich

Your God is ever beside you - indeed, He is even within you.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#God

Since His delights are to be with you, let yours be found in Him.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#God #Delight #Found

He who trusts himself is lost. He who trusts in God can do all things.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Saint #Trust In God #Lost

True charity consists in doing good to those who do us evil, and in thus winning them over.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Winning #Evil #Charity

What does it cost us to say: "My God help me! Have mercy on me!" Is there anything easier than this? And this little will suffice to save us if we be diligent in doing it.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Doe #Saint #Cost

Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Blessed #Helpful

The devil does not bring sinners to hell with their eyes open: he first blinds them with the malice of their own sins. Before we fall into sin, the enemy labours to blind us, that we may not see the evil we do and the ruin we bring upon ourselves by offending God. After we commit sin, he seeks to make us dumb, that, through shame, we may conceal our guilt in confession.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Fall #Eye #Offending

To be silent when we are impelled to utter words injurious to God or to our neighbour, is an act of virtue; but, to be silent in confessing our sins, is the ruin of the soul.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Silence #Soul #Ruins

If we should be saved and become saints, we ought always to stand at the gates of the Divine mercy to beg and pray for, as an alms, all that we need.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Saint #Needs #Praying

If, on a rare occasion, it is necessary to speak with some severity in order to make a grievous crime felt, we should always, at the conclusion of the rebuke, add some kind words. We must heal wounds, as the Samaritan did, with wine and oil. But as oil floats above all other liquors, so meekness should predominate in all our actions.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Anger #Wine #Order

Assuredly, Loving Souls, you should go to God with all humility and respect, humbling yourselves in His presence, especially when you remember your past ingratitude and sins.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Humility #Past #Soul

Ask those who love Him with a sincere love, and they will tell you that they find no greater or prompter relief amid the troubles of their life than in loving conversation with their Divine Friend.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Love #Loving Life #Relief

If you wish to strengthen your confidence in God still more, often recall the loving way in which He has acted toward you, and how mercifully He has tried to bring you out of your sinful life, to break your attachment to the things of earth and draw you to His love.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Loving Life #Attachment #Wish

We must practice modesty, not only in our looks, but also in our whole deportment, and particularly in our dress, our walk, our conversation, and all similar actions.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Practice #Dresses #Looks

Yet you should practice the greatest possible love and confidence in treating with Him.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Confidence #Practice #Possible Love

Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears - of everything that concerns you.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Speak #Trouble #Concern

By the law of nature, there is no pleasure in suffering; but divine love, when it reigns in a heart, makes it take delight in its sufferings.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Sympathy #Heart #Law

The heart of man is, so to speak, the paradise of God.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Heart #Men #Paradise

He who prays most receives most.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Prayer #Praying

Just as a mother finds pleasure in taking her little child on her lap, there to feed and caress him, in like manner our loving God shows His fondness for His beloved souls who have given themselves entirely to Him and have placed all their hope in His goodness.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Mother #Children #Soul

Mary having co-operated in our redemption with so much glory to God and so much love for us, Our Lord ordained that no one shall obtain salvation except through her intercession.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Religious #Redemption #Glory

God loves all those who love him: I love them that love Me.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Attachment #God Love

In the Great Deluge in the days of Noah, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the earth, and out of this deluge very few escape. Scarcely anyone is saved.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Eight #Water #Ark

Nothing else is required than to act toward God, in the midst of your occupations, as you do, even when busy, toward those who love you and whom you love.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Love You #Occupation #Busy

God is displeased at the diffidence of souls who love Him sincerely and whom He Himself loves.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Self Love #Soul #Sincerely

Not only is there no need of an intermediary through whom He would want you to speak to Him, but He finds His delight in having you treat with Him personally and in all confidence.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Confidence #Needs #Delight

With such thoughts in your mind, now that you have resolved to love Him and please Him with all your strength, your only fear should be to fear God too much and to place too little confidence in Him.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Confidence #Mind #Littles

Let us read the lives of the saints; let us consider the penances which they performed, and blush to be so effeminate and so fearful of mortifying our flesh.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Attachment #Saint #Flesh

It is just that he should act with reserve towards those who act with reserve towards him. On the contrary, he gives himself entirely to those souls, who, driving from their hearts everything that is not God, and does not lead them to his love, and giving themselves to him without reserve, truly say to him: My God and my all.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Heart #Attachment #Giving

How, then, shall God give himself entirely to that one who, besides his God, loves creatures still?
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Attachment #Giving #God Love

Many, however, gives themselves to God, but preserve still in their hearts some attachment to creatures, which prevents them from belonging entirely to God.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Heart #Attachment #Giving

You may be sure that of all the moments of your life, the time you spend before the divine Sacrament will be that which will give you more strength during life and more consolation at the hour of your death and during eternity
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Giving #May #Moments

When we see a beautiful object, a beautiful garden, or a beautiful flower, let us think that there we behold a ray of the infinite beauty of God, who has given existence to that object.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Beautiful #Flower #Garden

You will gain more by receiving scorn peacefully than if you fasted for a week on bread and water. It is good to humble ourselves; but it is much more worthwhile to accept the humiliations that come to us from others.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Humble #Water #Suffering

How beautiful she is, Our Lady of compassion! How dear! How utterly unselfish! How filled with joy for Him - and us - in the depths of her own agony and desolation!
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Beautiful #Compassion #Agony

My Jesus! What a lovable contrivance this holy Sacrament was - that You would hide under the appearance of bread to make Yourself loved and to be available for a visit by anyone who desires You!
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Desire #Bread

He would be guilty of mortal sin, because he exposes himself to the danger of grievously offending God. Hence, before he acts he must lay aside the doubt; and if he has not hitherto done so, he must confess it, at least, as it is before God. But the scrupulous, who have doubts about everything, must follow another rule: they must obey their confessor. When he tells them to conquer their doubts, and to act against scruples, they should obey with exactness; otherwise they will render themselves unable and unfit to perform any spiritual exercise.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Spiritual #Exercise #Offending

St. Augustine and St. Thomas define mortal sin to be a turning away from God: that is, the turning of one's back upon God, leaving the Creator for the sake of the creature. What punishment would that subject deserve who, while his king was giving him a command, contemptuously turned his back upon him to go and transgress his orders? This is what the sinner does; and this is punished in hell with the pain of loss, that is, the loss of God, a punishment richly deserved by him who in this life turns his back upon his sovereign good.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Kings #Pain #Loss

There is nothing more pleasing to God, than to see a soul who patiently and serenely bears whatever crosses it is sent; this is how love is made, by putting lover and loved one on the same level. . . A soul who loves Jesus Christ desires to be treated the way Christ was treated-desires to be poor, despised and humiliated.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Love Is #Soul

It would be the greatest delight of the seraphs to pile up sand on the seashore or to pull weeds in a garden for all eternity, if they found out such was God's will. Our Lord himself teaches us to ask to do the will of God on earth as the saints do it in heaven: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Weed #Garden #Heaven

The brightest ornaments in the crown of the blessed in heaven are the sufferings which they have borne patiently on earth.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Blessed #Heaven #Suffering

"The flowers have appeared in our land: the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land." When the soul, like the solitary turtle-dove, retires and recollects itself in meditation to converse with God, then the flowers, that is, good desires, appear; then comes the time of pruning, that is, the correction of faults that are discovered in mental prayer.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Prayer #Flower #Land

The means for maintaining perfect love is to accomplish frequent acts of love. Fire is kindled by the wood we cast into it and love is enkindled by acts of love.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Mean #Love Is #Fire

We must show charity towards the sick, who are in greater need of help. Let us take them some small gift if they are poor, or, at least let us go and wait on them and comfort them.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Sick #Waiting #Comfort

Obedience to a confessor is the most acceptable offering which we can make to God, and the most secure way of doing the divine will.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Offering #Way #Obedience

In obedience to humanity, the King of the universe come down from heaven! In obedience to humanity, he lives imprisoned on the altar! I shall not resist. He allows humans to keep him wherever they wish-in monstrance or tabernacle; to carry him in procession; to bring him into the homes of the sick and dying; to dispense him to all, whether saint or sinner. The gospel tells how marvelously he obeyed Mary and Joseph. Today he obeys every priest in the world.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Kings #Home #Sick

Love tends to union with the object loved. Now Jesus Christ loves a soul that is in a state of grace with immense love; He ardently desires to unite Himself with it. That is what Holy Communion does
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Grace #Soul

Good friends find pleasure in one another's company. Let us know pleasure in the company of our best Friend, a Friend who can do everything for us, a friend who loves us beyond measure. Here in the Blessed Sacrament we can talk to him straight from the heart. We can open our souls to him, tell him what we need, beg him for powerful graces. We are perfectly free to approach the King of the universe with full confidence and without fear.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Kings #Powerful #Blessed

Know also that you will probably gain more by praying fifteen minutes before the Blessed Sacrament than by all the other spiritual exercises of the day. True, Our Lord hears our prayers anywhere, for He has made the promise, 'Ask, and you shall receive,' but He has revealed to His servants that those who visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament will obtain a more abundant measure of grace.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Spiritual #Prayer #Blessed

O God-Man present in this sacrament for me - what a comfort, what a privilege to know I kneel before God! And to think that this God loves me!... Mary, my mother, help me to love him in return
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Mother #Men #Thinking

Certainly amongst all devotions, after that of receiving the sacraments, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament holds first place, is most pleasing to God, and most useful to ourselves. Do not then, O devout soul, refuse to begin this devotion; and forsaking the conversation of men, dwell each day, from this time forward, for at least half or quarter of an hour, in some church, in the presence of Jesus Christ under the sacramental species. Taste and see how sweet is the Lord.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Sweet #Jesus #Blessed

The sovereigns of the earth do not always grant audience readily; on the contrary, the King of Heaven, hidden under the eucharistic veils, is ready to receive anyone...
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Kings #Heaven #Veils

"Happy he that knows Thee, even if he knows nothing else," says St. Augustine. If we knew all the sciences and knew not how to love Jesus Christ, our knowledge shall profit us nothing to eternal life. But if we know how to love Jesus Christ, we shall know all things, and shall be happy for eternity.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Saint #How To Love

True, He is infinite Majesty, but He is also infinite Goodness and infinite Love. There can be no greater Lord than God; neither can there be a more ardent lover than He.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#True Love #Majesty #Lovers

He who wishes to find Jesus should seek Him, not in the delights and pleasures of the world, but in mortification of the senses.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Attachment #Wish

In cold and heat, in rain and wind, the soul united to God says, "I want it to be warm, to be cold, windy, to rain, because God wills it."
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Rain #Wind #Soul

After the love which we owe Jesus Christ, we must give the chief place in our heart to the love of His Mother Mary.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Mother #Religious #Jesus

Whoever prays is certainly saved. He who does not is certainly damned. All the blessed have been saved by prayer. All the damned have been lost through not praying. If they had prayed they would not have been lost. And this is, and will be their greatest torment in hell: to think how easily they might have been saved, just by asking God for His grace, but that now it is too late - their time of prayer is gone.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Prayer #Blessed #Thinking

It is almost certain that excess in eating is the cause of almost all the diseases of the body, but its effects on the soul are even more disastrous.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Soul #Causes #Saint

My Lord Jesus Christ, who, for the love You bear to mankind, do remain night and day in this Sacrament, full of pity and love, awaiting, calling, and receiving all who come to visit You; I believe that You are present in the Sacrament of the Altar; I adore You from the depths of my own nothingness; I thank You for the many graces You have given me, and especially for having given me Yourself in this Sacrament...
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Believe #Love You

New revelations regarding faith or morals ... have always been abhorred and challenged in the Church ... Hence, the Sovereign Pontiffs, the Councils, and the Fathers have been most careful to reject all novelties or new doctrines on matters of faith which differed from those already received.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Father #Catholic #Church

What grieves me most in my past offenses, O my loving God, is not so much the punishment I have deserved, as the displeasure I have given You, Who are worthy of infinite love.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Past #Grieving #Punishment

A soul who loves Jesus Christ desires to be treated the way Christ was treated-desires to be poor, despised, and humiliated.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Soul #Desire

But You never reject a repentant and humble heart.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Heart #Humble #Rejects

The way to Heaven is straight and narrow: they who wish to arrive at that place of bliss by walking in the paths of pleasure shall be disappointed; and therefore few reach it, because few are willing to use violence to themselves in resisting temptations.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Heaven #Temptation #Wish

Let us make up for lost time. Let us give to God the time that remains to us.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Giving #Saint #Lost

Those who are seeking the true religion will never find it outside the Catholic Church alone, because, in every other religion, if they trace it up to the author, they will find some impostor whose imagination furnished a mass of sophisms and errors
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Errors #Imagination #Catholic

Saint Teresa, as the Roman Rota attests, never fell into any mortal sin; but still Our Lord showed her the place prepared for her in Hell; not because she deserved Hell, but because, had she not risen from the state of lukewarmness in which she lived, she would in the end have lost the grace of God and been damned.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Grace #Saint #Sin

In temptations against chastity, the spiritual masters advise us, not so much to contend with the bad thought, as to turn the mind to some spiritual, or, at least, indifferent object. It is useful to combat other bad thoughts face to face, but not thoughts of impurity.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Spiritual #Temptation #Catholic

Before the coming of Jesus Christ, men fled away from God and, being attached to the earth, refused to unite themselves to their Creator. But the loving God has drawn them to Himself by the bonds of love, as He promised by the prophet Osee [Hosea]: "I will draw them with the cords of Adam, with the bonds of love" (11:4). These bonds are the benefits, the lights, the calls to His love, the promises of Paradise which He makes to us, but above all, the gift which He has bestowed upon us of Jesus Christ in the Sacrifice of the Cross and in the Sacrament of the Altar...
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Jesus #Sacrifice #Men

A person may be Baptized, and yet not born again to grace, in consequence of not having the necessary dispositions at Baptism.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Grace #Baptism #May

The definitions of the Church are the rules of true faith.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Church #Definitions #Salvation

It is a great mistake, as we have already remarked, to be afraid of Him and to act in His presence like a timid and craven slave trembling with fright before his master.
-- Alphonsus Liguori

#Mistake #Slave #Masters