Vance Havner Quotes

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good...Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.

Are we controlled by our thoughts, or are we controlling our thoughts?

We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures.

Everybody's got the potential for great good and great wrong in them, but it's the choices we make that define who we really are.

L'homme n'est ni ange ni be" te, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la be" te. Man is neither angel nor beast.Unfortunately, he who wants to act the angel often acts the beast.

Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words.

Do not be thoughtless, always be mindful, watch your thoughts! Draw yourself out of the path of evil, like an elephant sunk in mud.

Temptations, of course, cannot be avoided, but because we cannot prevent the birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them nest in our hair.

There are those who say that temptation can be barricaded beyond the door. The ones who think that stray desires can be driven out of the heart like the moneychangers from the temple. Maybe they can, if you patrol your weak points day and night, don't look, don't smell, don't dream.

Why then be perverted and follow thy flesh? Be it converted and follow thee.

We usually know what we can do, but temptation shows us who we are.

You must not allow yourself to dwell for a single moment on any kind of negative thought.

I do not allow myself vain regrets or foreboding.

I don't torture myself.

No temptation can gravitate to a man unless there is that is his heart which is capable of responding to it.

Terrible is the fight put up by the senses. Fight bravely! Conquer them you must.

Mindfulness has helped me succeed in almost every dimension of my life. By stopping regularly to look inward and become aware of my mental state, I stay connected to the source of my actions and thoughts and can guide them with considerably more intention.

We have control over the work of our hands, but little over the working of the soul. But yet we must yield to it, for without it we have nothing.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

A little kingdom I possess, where thoughts and feelings dwell; And very hard the task I find of governing it well.

The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.

Your hands, your eyes, your voice, your thoughts are your servants.

Virtue is a positive quality developed by taking a firm stand for the right in temptation, or by the suffering endured in consequence of wrongdoing.

His passion has aroused the best and the beast in man. And the beast waited for him in the kitchen.

If you are vigilant and make a stern effort to reject every thought when it rises, you will soon find that you are going deeper and deeper into your own inner self, where there is no need for your effort to reject the thoughts.