William Law Quotes (34 Quotes)

Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.

Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.

Love and pity and wish well to every soul in the world; dwell in love, and then you dwell in God.

If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead.

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 blessi

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.

Be intent on the perfection of the present day.

If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.

What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly?

Repentance is but a kind of table-talk, till we see so much of the deformity of our inward nature as to be in some degree frightened and terrified at the sight of it.... A plausible form of an outward life, that has only learned rules and modes of religion by use and custom, often keeps the soul for some time at ease, though all its inward root and ground of sin has never been shaken or molested, though it has never tasted of the bitter waters of repentance and has only known the want of a Saviour by hearsay. But things cannot pass thus sooner or later repentance must have a broken and a contrite heart we must with our blessed Lord go over the brook Cedron, and with Him sweat great drops of sorrow before He can say for us, as He said for Himself 'It is finished.'

Humility is nothing else but a right judgment of ourselves.

As a good Christian should consider every place as holy, because God is there, so he should look upon every part of his life as a matter of holiness, because it is offered unto God. The profession of a clergyman is a holy profession, because it is a ministration in holy things, an attendance at the alter. But worldly business is to be made holy unto the Lord, by being done as a service unto Him, and in conformity to His Divine will.

God seeth different abilities and frailties of men, which may move His goodness to be merciful to their different improvements in virtue.

Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state.

Piety requires us to renounce no ways of life where we can act reasonably, and offers what we do to the glory of God.

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 as certainly as He lived in and governed that body and soul which He took from the Virgin Mary.

Where has the Scripture made merit the rule or measure of charity

Hell is nothing else but nature departed or excluded from the beam of divine light.

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

The will is that which has all power it makes heaven and it makes hell for there is no hell but where the will of the creature is turned from God, nor any heaven but where the will of the creature worketh with God.

A revelation is to be received as coming from God, not because of its internal excellence, or because we judge it to be worthy of God but because God has declared it to be His in as plain and undeniable a manner as He has declared creation and providence to be His.

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.

Love has no errors, for all errors are the want for love.

What could begin to deny self, if there were not something in man different from self?

He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life.

Faith is not a notion, but a real strong essential hunger, an attracting or magnetic desire of Christ, which as it proceeds from a seed of the divine nature in us, so it attracts and unites with its like.

Religion is not ours till we live by it, till it is the Religion of our thoughts, words, and actions, till it goes with us into every place, sits uppermost on every occasion, and forms and governs our hopes and fears, our cares and pleasures.

All that is sweet, delightful, and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the fineness of seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrancy of smells, the splendor our precious stones, is nothing else but Heaven breaking through the veil of this world, manifesting itself in such a degree and darting forth in such variety so much of its own nature.

Death is not more certainly a separation of our souls from our bodies than the Christian life is a separation of our souls from worldly tempers, vain indulgences, and unnecessary cares.

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.

Nothing hath separated us from God but our own will, or rather our own will is our separation from God.

Ask what Time is, it is nothing else but something of eternal duration become finite, measurable and transitory.

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.

You may indeed do many works of love and delight in them -- especially at such times as they are not inconvenient to your state or temper or occurrences in life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the spirit of your life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it.