James Russell Lowell Quotes

That was my nature - going from temptation after temptation, not to sin, but to be redeemed.

Who in the Bible besides Jesus knew--knew--that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look?

The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer.

O God, make me good, but not yet.

The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven, and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth

By one hour's intimate access to the throne of grace, where the Lord causes His glory to pass before the soul that seeks Him you may acquire more true spiritual knowledge and comfort than a day's or a week's converse with the best of men, or the most.

Sin will be always acting, if we be not always mortifying, we are lost creatures.

God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.

He who finds not opposition from sin, and who sets not himself in every particular to its mortification, is at peace with it, not dying to it.

Everybody's got some sin, but if it troubles your heart you're a gentle sinner, just a good soul gone wrong.

The ways of sin are curious . . . I guess if a man had to shuck off everything he had, inside and out, he'd manage to hide a few little sins somewhere for his own discomfort. They're the last things we'll give up.

I'm a person who's trying to live within divine law, to the best and it's very hard because it's self-discipline, because the more you realise, the more you've got to get yourself straight, so it's hard, you know. I'm trying and there are a lot of people who are trying, even people who are not conscious that they are doing it, but they are really doing things for the good, or just to be happy or whatever.

Why do some persons 'find' God in a way that others do not? Why does God manifest His Presence to some and let multitudes of others struggle along in the half-light of imperfect Christian experience? Of course the will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household. All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies not with God but with us.

We cannot take a step toward the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us.

I am still raw. I say I may be back. You know what lies are for. Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet.

Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection.

Every day, I live a lie But not the crocodile kind.

It struck me, sharp and hard, that I had been given so many chances to save my soul that my entire life had been constructed around these chances! That was my nature - going from temptation to temptation, not to sin, but to be redeemed.

When sins are dear to us we are too prone to slide into them again. The act of repentance itself is often sweetened with the thought that it clears our account for a repetition of the same sin.

I am much more afraid of my good deeds that please me than of my bad deeds that repel me.

A saint is a sinner who never gave up.

Conversion is not putting a man in an armchair and taking him easily to heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory.

When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the and lies our great woe. If we omit the and we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.

O you proud Christians, wretched souls and small,/ Who by the dim lights of your twisted minds/ Believe you prosper even as you fall,/ Can you not see that we are worms, each one/ Born to become the angelic butterfly/ That flies defenseless to the Judgement Throne?