Quotes from Hadewijch

even if you do the best you can in all things, your human nature must often fall short; so entrust yourself to God's goodness, for his goodness is greater than your failures.

What use is it for me to force my nature? / For my nature shall always remain / What it is and conquer what belongs to it, / However men may narrow its path.

The soul who is most untouched is the most like to God.

The New Year has come to us. / God be blessed for it.

Do good under all circumstances, but with no care for any profit, or any blessedness, or any damnation, or any salvation, or any martyrdom; but all you do or omit should be for the honor of Love.

love is that burning fire which devours everything and shall never, never cease in all the endless ages to come.

Take care, you who wish / to deal with names / for love. Behind their sweetness / and wrath, nothing endures. / Nothing but wounds and kisses.

I wish to devote all my time / To noble thoughts about great Love.

The new year has begun for us. / Now must God grant us with love / That we may be able so to begin it / That it may be of value for Love.

Although the season is joyful everywhere, / And mountain and valley are all verdant, / That would seem a truly small matter to him / Who has met mischance in love.

For this is love's truth; she joins two in one being, makes sweet sour, strangers neighbors, and the lowly noble.

May your service of love a beautiful thing; want nothing else, fear nothing else and let love be free to become what love truly is.

For this is love's truth; she joins two in one being, makes sweet sour, strangers neighbors, and the lowly noble.

Be fervent in God, and let nothing grieve you, whatever you encounter.

Gain or loss, honor or shame, Consolation at being with God in heaven Or in the torture of hell: This Fire makes no distinction. It burns to death everything it ever touches: Damnation or blessing no longer matters.

Make haste to Love.

At that time I also had, for a short while, the strength to bear it. But all too soon I lost external sight of the shape of that beautiful man, and I saw him disappear to nothing, so quickly melting away and fusing together that I could not see or observe him outside of me, nor discern him within me. It was to me at that moment as if we were one without distinction.

Be fervent in God, and let nothing grieve you, whatever you encounter.