Thomas a Kempis Quotes

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and they that lack the beginning have neither middle nor end

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then growing in our knowledge of God is always practical.

I found it better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand.

Are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?

And I have written three books on the soul, Proving absurd all written hitherto, And putting us to ignorance again.

If you lack knowledge, go to school. If you lack wisdom, get on your knees.

The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

Humble, honest, ignorance is one of the finest flowers of the human spirit

I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.

The soul is perfected by knowledge and virtue.

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge

Trials always change our relationship with God. Either they drive us to Him, or they drive us away from Him. The extent of our fear of Him and our awareness of His love for us determine in which direction we will move.

The Man That Knowz Something Knowz That He Knowz Nothing At All.

One can become as intellectually arrogant about spirituality as about empirical science.

To me, the right approach is to say we are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God - it's that that seems to me to close off the discussion.

I think of the need for more wisdom in the world, to deal with the knowledge that we have. At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge?

The soul is in danger when knowledge of doctrine outsteps intimate touch with Jesus.

Conceit is a privilege of the ignorant; the wise man is humble because he knows how little he knows.

He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.

As the moon, though darkened with spots, gives us a much greater light than the stars that sewn all-luminous, so do the Scriptures afford more light than the brightest human authors. In them the ignorant may learn all requisite knowledge, and the most knowing may learn to discern their ignorance.

In order that knowledge may not run riot, the author of the Gita has insisted on devotion accompanying it and has given it the first place.

It needs more than a heart of oak to shed all fear except the fear of God.

The fear of God reigning in the heart is the beauty of the soul.

In the school of the spirit, man learns wisdom through humility.

The soul force we need in America today, more than any other, is the spirit of atonement. We need to humble ourselves before God and ask forgiveness for the things we have done wrong. We need to ask God to forgive us for our arrogance.