Peter Abelard Quotes

Honest hearts produce honest actions.

You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.

To know the good from the bad, measure the heart. Actions reveal the true coloring of one's heart, not their intentions.

We may say simply that in the sight of God we are judged not so much by what we do as by our reasons for doing it.

Anyone can see that intending and not acting when we can is not really intending, and loving and not doing good when we can is not really loving.

Good impulses are naught, unless they become good actions.

The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.

It's about your heart and about your consciousness. It's not about length of time you pray. Some of the most powerful prayers I've ever heard come from children, who can barely speak.

However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart.

What the world needs is people with integrity, people with genuine thoughts and intentions.

I will not steep my speech in lies; the test of any man lies in action.

A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions or his beliefs.

At the end of the day, will God be interested primarily in whether I have been kind and helped others, or in whether I was baptized and how?

Intention, good or bad, is not enough.

Worship or prayer is not to be performed with the lips, but with the heart.

Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works.

I think it was a big revelation to me earlier in my life that people who appear to be evil are actually not. In other words, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, "Yuck, yuck, yuck, I'm gonna be evil." I think even like Saddam Hussein or Hitler would wake up and say, "I think it's going to be a good day. I'm gonna do some really important work." And given their definition of good, they went out and did horrible things.

Man considers the actions, but God weighs the intentions.

Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices.

I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.

The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.

Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?