Joseph Addison Quotes

The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God's love; but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.

The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its source.

God made our souls to long for Him, and we are not fully satisfied without His presence in our lives.

If there is not at least a yearning in our hearts to live a holy life pleasing to God, we need to seriously question whether our faith in Christ is genuine.

The guest of our soul knows our misery; He comes to find an empty tent within us - that is all He asks.

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.

Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.

The simultaneous existence of opposite virtues in the soul like pincers to catch hold of God.

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.

Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.

Loneliness is the fundamental force that urgees mystics to a deeper union with God... An experience of God quenches this thirst for the absolute but at the same time, paradoxiacally, whets it, because this is an experience that can never be total; by necessity, the knowledge of God is always partial. So loneliness opens up mystics to a desire to love each other and every human being as God loves them.

The greater perfection a soul aspires after, the more dependent it is upon Divine Grace.

Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection.

C.S. Lewis had a big influence on me in this spiritual realm - this sort of sense of longing. A longing for a knowledge that is just outside of our reach, a knowledge for a spiritual connection.

Of late God has been pleased to keep my soul hungry almost continually, so that I have been filled with a kind of pleasing pain. When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of Him the more insatiable and my thirstings after holiness more unquenchable.

Perfection is the exclusive attribute of God, and it is indescribable, untranslatable. I do believe that it is possible for human beings to become perfect, even as God is perfect. It is necessary for all of us to aspire after that perfection but when that blessed state is attained, it become indescribable, indefinable.

... the more one needs God the more perfect he is. To need God is nothing to be ashamed of but is perfection itself. It is the saddest thing in the world if a human being goes through life without discovering that he needs God!

Thirsting desires and longings possessed my soul after perfect holiness. God was so precious to my soul that the world with all its enjoyments appeared vile. I had no more value for the favor of men than for pebbles.

The divine injunction to be perfect, even as He is perfect, was not given man to mock him. The possibility of our waking in His likeness is literally true.

The goal of the human soul is conquest, perfection, security, superiority.

The Light of the Christ within now wipes out all fear, doubt, anger and resentment. God's love pours through me, an irresistible magnetic current. I see only perfection and draw to me my own.

What we call our joy, God calls our perfection. Each human being has come into the world with the message of perfection. Each human being will one day realize the highest Truth. Each human being is destined to be fulfilled. It is the birthright of our soul.

Jesus removes all that is superfluous & unclean from our prayers, & adds His perfection, beauty & fragrance to them!

You would attain to the divine perfection.

The highest and greatest goal that every soul has to reach is God. As everything needs renunciation, that highest goal needs the highest renunciation.