Quotes from Thomas a Kempis

Do not read to satisfy curiosity or to pass the time, but study such things as move your heart to devotion.

If thou wilt receive profit, read with humility, simplicity and faith, and seek not at any time the fame of being learned.

Love is a great thing, a good above all others, which alone maketh every burden light.

Anyone who thinks hard work will never hurt you has never had to pay to have it done. Jesus now has many lovers of his Heavenly Kingdom, but few bearers of his cross.

Remember that lost time does not return.

Activate yourself to duty by remembering your position, who you are, and what you have obliged yourself to be.

I would far rather feel remorse than know how to define it.

Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good.

Trust not to your feelings for whatever they might be now, they will quickly be changed towards some other thing.

Trust not to friends and kindred, neither do thou put off the care of thy soul's welfare til hereafter; for men will sooner forget thee than thou art aware of.

Study, therefore, to withdraw the love of your soul from all things that are visible, and turn it to things that are invisible.

Love alone makes heavy burdens light and bears in equal balance things pleasing and displeasing. Love bears a heavy burden and does not feel it, and love makes bitter things tasteful and sweet.

The better you understand yourself the less cause you will find to love yourself.

Love flies, runs, and rejoices; it is free and nothing can hold it back.

Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good. By itself it makes what is heavy light; and bears evenly all that is uneven.

All is vanity but to love God and serve Him.

Out of sight, out of mind. The absent are always in the wrong.

Grace is the mastery of truth, the teacher of discipline, the light of the heart, the comforter of affliction, the banisher of sorrow, the nurse of devotion.

A lover of Jesus and of the truth can lift himself above himself in spirit.

Wheresoever we seek our own, there we fall from love.

He does much who loves God much, and he does much who does his deed well.

Though weary, it is not tired: though pressed it is not straightened; though alarmed, it is not confounded; but as a living flame it forces itself upwards and securely passes through all.

Love longs to be free, a stranger to every worldly desire, lest its inner vision become dimmed, and lest worldly self-interest hinder it or ill-fortune cast it down.

He does much who loves God much, and he does much who does his deed well, and he does his deed well who does it rather for the common good than for his own will.