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Feasts and business and pleasure and enjoyments seem great things to us, whilst we think of nothing else but as soon as we add death to them they all sink into an equal littleness.

William Law

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William Law
Age: 75 †
Born: 1686
Born: January 1
Died: 1761
Died: April 9
Theologian
Writer
King's Cliffe
Northamptonshire
Things
Religious
Whilst
Think
Christian
Sink
Thinking
Business
Enjoyment
Death
Add
Else
Soon
Seems
Equal
Feasts
Nothing
Seem
Littleness
Great
Pleasure
Enjoyments

More quotes by William Law

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This, and this alone, is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of piety and devotion to God.
William Law
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Perfection does not consist in any singular state or condition of life, or in any particular set of duties, but in holy and religious conduct of ourselves in every state of Life.
William Law
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Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are good but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in us the fruits of intemperance.
William Law
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If you attempt to talk with a dying man about sports or business, he is no longer interested. He now sees other things as more important. People who are dying recognize what we often forget, that we are standing on the brink of another world.
William Law
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You have no questions to ask of any body, no new way that you need inquire after no oracle that you need to consult for whilst you shut yourself up in patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God, you are in the very arms of Christ, your heart is His dwelling-place, and He lives and works in you.
William Law
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We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.
William Law
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From morning to night keep Jesus in thy heart, long for nothing, desire nothing, hope for nothing but to have all that is within thee changed into the spirit and temper of the holy Jesus.
William Law
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Whatever littleness and vanity is to be observed in the minds of women, it is, like the cruelty of butchers, a temper that is wrought into them by that life which they are taught and accustomed to lead.
William Law
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You are to think of yourself as only existing in this world to do God's will. To think that you are your own is as absurd as to think you are self-created. It is an obvious first principle that you belong completely to God.
William Law
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Nothing harms or destroys us but the wrong use of that liberty of choice which God has entrusted to us.
William Law
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Where has the Scripture made merit the rule or measure of charity?.
William Law
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Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life.
William Law
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Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God's goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new-created upon your account: and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.
William Law
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If our life is not a course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians.
William Law
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Man needs to be Saved from his own Wisdom as much as from his own Righteousness, for they produce one and the same corruption. Nothing saves a man from his own righteousness, but that which delivers him from his own wisdom.
William Law
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The greatest saint in the world is not he who prays most or fasts most it is not he who gives alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice. It is he who is most thankful to God.
William Law
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Now if you will stop here and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.
William Law
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The more we pay for any truth, the better is our bargain.
William Law
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He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life.
William Law
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Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.
William Law