Quotes from Edith Stein

One could say that in case of need, every normal and healthy woman is able to hold a position. And there is no profession which cannot be practiced by a woman.

On the question of relating to our fellowman - our neighbor's spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is an end already, since God is love.

Whoever resorts regularly to the lessons of Holy Scripture as an apt pupil will take the Savior into her group, and the children will perceive that He is present and that He assists in their work; thus, He will take possession of their souls.

Both spiritual companionship and spiritual motherliness are not limited to the physical wife and mother relationship, but they extend to all people with whom woman comes into contact.

My longing for truth was a single prayer.

Everywhere the need exists for maternal sympathy and help.

Because human development is the most specific and exalted mission of woman, studies in anthropology and theory of pedagogy are essential in girls' education.

Since Mary is the prototype of pure womanhood, the imitation of Mary must be the goal of girls' education.

The entire educational process must be carried out with love, which is perceptible in every disciplinary measure and which does not instill any fear. And the most effective educational method is not the word of instruction but the living example without which all words remain useless.

The community that stands behind a culture as a comprehensively productive personality must be so extensive that in it, to a certain degree, all partialities balance out and work together.

The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's own life in order to make room for God's life.

When you seek truth, you seek God whether you know it or not.

Do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.

Anyone who seeks truth seeks God, whether or not he realizes it.

The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church.

In order to be an image of God, the spirit must turn to what is eternal, hold it in spirit, keep it in memory, and by loving it, embrace it in the will.

As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men, the anguish in our neighbor's soul must break all precept. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.

As the possessor of complete knowledge, God is not mistaken about people's experiences as people are mistaken about each others' experiences.

Each woman who lives in the light of eternity can fulfill her vocation, no matter if it is in marriage, in a religious order, or in a worldly profession.

Who can sleep on the night that God became man?

The world doesn't need what women have, it needs what women are.

Woman naturally seeks to embrace that which is living, personal, and whole. To cherish, guard, protect, nourish and advance growth is her natural, maternal yearning.

Peoplehood tends to develop into nationhood if the people achieves a certain maturity. This is analogous to an individual person who becomes acquainted with herself only in the course of her life, without being able to say that she possessed no personal uniqueness at all before that 'self-recognition.'

A community having the breadth and scope of a people still cannot claim to be an ethnic community unless and until there emerges from its mentality a distinctive culture particularized by the community's special character.