Repentance is the true turning of our life to God, a turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of Him; and it consists in the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the Spirit. — John Calvin
Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind. — Ogden Nash
Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride. — Richard Sibbes
Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish. — David Mallet
Obedience is the burial of the will and the resurrection of humility. — John Climacus
Satisfaction consists in the cutting off of the causes of the sin. Thus, fasting is the proper antidote to lust; prayer to pride, to envy, anger and sloth; alms to covetousness. — Richard of Chichester
There is a lovely root to the word humiliation - from the latin word humus, meaning soil or ground. When we are humiliated, we are in effect returning to the ground of our being. — David Whyte
The soul cannot be humbled by fasts and prayer; it must be broken by mortal sin to experience forgiveness of sin and rise to a state of grace. Otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic. — Willa Cather
Humiliating people in the name of religion is the practice of someone deprived of the first fruit of religion, # humility . — Nouman Ali Khan
The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, it is at the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The pleasures of humility are really the most refined, inward, and exquisite delights in the world. — Jonathan Edwards
Short Mortification Quotes
Christ's blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. — John Owen
Where there is no great mortification there is no great sanctity. — Philip Neri
Despair gives the shocking ease to the mind that a mortification gives to the body. — Sir Fulke Greville
Sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet. — John Owen
All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain. — John Owen
I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine. — Jane Austen
Without mortification nothing can be done. — Philip Neri
When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone. — John Owen
Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities. — Oliver Goldsmith
Those who live on vanity must, not unreasonably, expect to die of mortification. — Alice Thomas Ellis
What we need is a cup of understanding, a barrel of love, and an ocean of patience. — Saint Francis de Sales
Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me. — Clare of Assisi
Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. — Anthony of Padua
Everyone may not be good, but there's always something good in everyone. Never judge anyone shortly because every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. — Oscar Wilde
Love God, serve God; everything is in that. — Clare of Assisi
The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers. — Maximilian Kolbe
Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul, except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry. — Saint Francis de Sales
He who wishes to find Jesus should seek Him, not in the delights and pleasures of the world, but in mortification of the senses. — Alphonsus Liguori
We know one another's faults, virtues, catastrophes, mortifications, triumphs, rivalries, desires, and how long we can each hang by our hands to a bar. We have been banded together under pack codes and tribal laws. — Rose Macaulay
The heroic minute.- It is the time fixed for getting up.- Without hesitation: a supernatural reflection and.-.-.- up! The heroic minute: here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does no harm to your body. — Josemaria Escriva
Oh, how I like those little mortifications that are seen by nobody, such as rising a quarter of an hour sooner, rising for a little while in the night to pray! — John Vianney
Obedience is a penance of reason, and, on that account, a sacrifice more acceptable than all corporal penances and mortifications. — John of the Cross
The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy. — Mother Teresa
The state of marriage is one that requires more virtue and constancy than any other; it is a perpetual exercise in mortification. — Saint Francis de Sales
Marriage is a tyranny, a mortification of man's natural instincts. Man needs a multiplicity of relationships. — Federico Fellini
... mortification is basic to the act of photographing. The person is mobile, ... then I freeze one moment in his movement, a mere five-hundredth of a second of that person's life-time. That's a very meager or small extract from a life. — August Sander
The good Lord send out a spirit of mortification to cure our distempers, or we are in a sad condition! — John Owen
Sin also carries on its war by entangling the affections and drawing them into an alliance against the mind. Grace may be enthroned in the mind, but if sin controls the affections, it has seized a fort from which it will continually assault the soul. Hence, as we shall see, mortification is chiefly directed to take place upon the affections. — John Owen
We launch our souls from the cannons of art and discipline, and on any one night, hovering over the chimney tops of Europe, halfway to the stars, there are armies of brightly spinning spirits that have risen like fireworks, tethered to the souls of those men and women who, by reflection, mortification, and devotion, effortlessly outdazzle kings. — Mark Helprin
If we could have a little patience, we should escape much mortification; time takes away as much as it gives. — Marquise De SeVigne
Let a man neither give himself over to pleasures ... nor yet let him give himself over to self-mortification ... To the exclusion of both these extremes, the Truth-Finder has discovered a middle course. — Buddha
A man may be carried on in a constant course of mortification all his days; and yet perhaps never enjoy a good day of peace and consolation. — John Owen
We have very little, so we have nothing to be preoccupied with. The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have, the more free you are. — Mother Teresa
The perfection of a Christian consists in mortifying his will for the love of Christ. Where there is no great mortification, there is no great sanctity. — Philip Neri
There are two things that we should avoid, oh disciple! A life of pleasures, that is low and vain. A life of mortification, that is useless and vain. — Buddha
It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the under-workman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces, which come from the hand of the master. — David Hume
Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and thou wilt die a conqueror; yea, thou wilt, through the good providence of God, live to see thy lust dead at thy feet. — John Owen
Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world. — John Owen
That single thought is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences,) is indulged. — Edgar Allan Poe
The Buddha's message was simple but profound. Neither a life of self-indulgence nor one of self-mortification can bring happiness. Only a middle path, avoiding these two extremes, leads to peace of mind, wisdom, & complete liberation from the dissatisfactions of life. — Henepola Gunaratana
Never before has a civilization reached such a degree of a contempt for life; never before has a generation, drowned in mortification, felt such a rage to live. — Raoul Vaneigem
Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment, shame, and mortification should their parents so much as speak to them on the street. — Neil Gaiman
Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it. — Charles Caleb Colton
The mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh is the constant duty of believers. — John Owen
To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only Him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is, 'He leads the way, keep close to Him.' — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin. — John Owen
Sanctification has a double aspect. Its positive side is vivification, the growing and maturing of the new man; its negative side is mortification, the weakening and killing of the old man. — J. I. Packer
Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt. — Oliver Goldsmith
Whoever the kid had been, whoever had had the grand attitude, has finally heeded the admonishment of parents, teachers, governments, religions, and the law: )You just change your attitude now please, young man. — William Saroyan
A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit. — John Owen
... many a heart is caught in the rebound ... Pride may be soothed by the ready devotion of another; vanity may be excited the more keenly by recent mortification. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon
In Conclusion
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