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We may justly condemn ourselves as the greatest sinners we know because we know more of the folly of our own heart than we do of other people's.

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
Condemn
Sinner
Folly
Greatest
May
Heart
People
Justly
Sinners

More quotes by William Law

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The obedience of men is to imitate the obedience of angels, and rational beings on earth are to live unto God, as rational beings in heaven live unto Him.
William Law
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If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and all perfection, he must tell you to make a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you.
William Law
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What could begin to deny self, if there were not something in man different from self?
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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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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Follow Christ in the denial of all the wills of self, and then all is put away that separates you from God the heaven born new creature will come to life in you, which alone knows and enjoys the things of God, and has his daily food of gladness in that manifold blessed, and blessed, which Christ preached on the mount.
William Law
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The sun meets not the springing bud that stretches towards him with half the certainty that God, the source of all good, communicates himself to the soul that longs to partake of him.
William Law
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If someone is leaving you behind, and you are becoming jealous and embittered, keep praying that he may have success in the very matter where he is awakening your envy and whether he is helped or not, one thing is sure, that your own soul will be cleansed and ennobled.
William Law
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He that rightly understands the reasonableness and Excellency of charity will know that it can never be excusable to waste any of our money in pride and folly.
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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If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.
William Law
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All our salvation consists in the manifestation of the nature, life and spirit of Jesus Christ in our inward new man. This alone is Christian redemption, this alone delivers from the guilt and power of sin, this alone redeems and renews.
William Law
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Wherever thou goest, whatever thou dost at home, or abroad, in the field, or at church, do all in a desire of union with Christ, in imitation of His tempers and inclinations, and look upon all as nothing, but that which exercises, and increases the spirit and life of Christ in thy soul.
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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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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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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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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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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All people desire what they believe will make them happy. If a person is not full of desire for God, we can only conclude that he is engaged with another happiness.
William Law
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No education can be of true advantage to young women but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of living, in exact modesty of dress.
William Law