Teresa of Avila Quotes

I hope, by God's grace, that I am truly a Christian, not deviating from the faith, and that I would rather suffer the penalty of a terrible death than wish to affirm anything outside of the faith or transgress the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My name is Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown. I am a devoted servant of Allah, and an unwavering devotee to His cause. For more than 30 years, I have been tormented and persecuted by my enemies for reasons of race and belief.

I do not permit affection or lack thereof to influence my actions. There is good, and there is evil. The good must be protected, the evil eradicated. I have shown you the triumph of evil as a caution.

We pledge our loyalty; we affirm our determination to be of good courage; we declare, sometimes even publicly, that come what may we will do the right thing, that we will stand for the right cause, that we will be true to ourselves and to others. Then the pressures begin to build. Sometimes these are social pressures. Sometimes they are personal appetites. Sometimes they are false ambitions. There is a weakening of the will. There is a softening of discipline. There is capitulation. And then there is remorse, self-accusation, and bitter tears of regret.

To eat bread is one thing; to love the precepts of Christ and resolve to obey them is quite another.

The severest prosecutions have never been followed by revelations changing a divine law, obedience to which brought imprisonment or martyrdom. Though I go to prison, God will not change his law of celestial marriage.

Better to be cast out of the Church than to deny Christ.

A remorseful change of mind renders even a noble action base, whereas the determination which is grounded on knowledge and reason cannot change even if its actions fail.

No doubt [women of faith in the past] were reproached for His name's sake, and accounted mad women; but they had a faith which enabled them at that time to overcome the world, and by which they climbed up to heaven.

Radical Christians are not people who wear Christian t-shirts. Radical Christians are those who bear fruit of the Holy Spirit...A little boy, Andrew, a Muslim shot him five times through the stomach and left him on a sidewalk simply because he said, 'I am so afraid, but I can not deny Jesus Christ! Please don't kill me! But I will not deny Him!' He died in a pool of blood, and you talk about being a radical Christian because you wear a t-shirt!

Set your face for religion being upright, the nature made by Allah in which He has created the human being.

It is better for me to die in behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the ends of the earth.

Missionaries never give up on their dream of peace, even when they experience difficulties and persecution, which makes their presence strongly felt today.

I cannot choose but adhere to the word of God, which has possession of my conscience; nor can I possibly, nor will I even make any recantation, since it is neither safe nor honest to act contrary to conscience! Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God! Amen.

March on, the Lord is our General.

If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme importance of some moral or religious doctrine; if you can make him believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means of his ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,-he will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine.

You may conquer her love of God: you will never overcome her fear of the devil.

I hope that I'm not the type of person who, standing at the doorway to hell, strikes a heroic pose and then starts frowning with indecision.

A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour than in any other word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the almighty have lived by and died by?

Conscience, that boon companion who sets a man free under the strong breastplate of innocence, that bids him on and fear not.

First, never go against the best light you have; second, take care that your light be not darkness.

I know of nothing which I would choose to have as the subject of my ambition for life than to be kept faithful to my God till death.

The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.

Persecution shows who is a hireling, and who a true pastor.

Jacob did not cease to be a Saint because he had to attend to his flocks.