There is no affliction, trial, or labor difficult to endure, when we consider the torments and sufferings which Our Lord Jesus Christ endured for us.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The more we cater to our physical comfort, the more we find ourselves wanting and desiring.
Teresa of Avila's quote reflects on the human condition and the inherent nature of desire. It suggests that as we indulge in physical comforts and care for our bodies, we may inadvertently cultivate more needs and cravings, leading to a cycle of unending desire rather than contentment. This insight encourages reflection on the relationship between well-being and material wants.
Themes
DesireComfortNeedsHuman ConditionContentment
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impact of luxury on personal happiness.
More from Teresa Of Avila
All quotes βHow often I failed in my duty to God, because I was not leaning on the strong pillar of prayer.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
What friends or kindred can be so close and intimate as the powers of our soul, which, whether we will or no, must ever bear us company?
Teresa Of AvilaRead
To converse with You, O King of glory, no third person is needed, You are always ready in the Sacrament of the Altar to give audience to all. All who desire You always find You there, and converse with You face to face
Teresa Of AvilaRead
If we do not use great care to mortify our will, there are many things which can deprives us of the holy freedom of spirit that we are seeking in order to fly more freely to our Creator, without always being bogged down with the clay of this earth. Moreover, there can never be solid virtue in a soul that is attached to its own will.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
I say the same of humility and of all the virtues; the wiles of the devil are terrible, he will run a thousand times round hell if by so doing he can make us believe that we have a single virtue which we have not. And he is right, for such ideas are very harmful, and such imaginary virtues, when they come from this source, are never unaccompanied by vainglory; just as those which God gives are free both from this and from pride.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
Similar quotes
Beauty is self-defined, perceived and understood without ambiguity. It's the stuff that lies under the skins of our individual existences.
Terence MckennaRead
If we had more sleepless nights in prayer, there would be far fewer souls to have a sleepless eternal night in hell.
Leonard RavenhillRead
...it is not only the general principles of justice that are infringed, or at least set aside, by the exclusion of women, merely as women, from any share in the representation; that exclusion is also repugnant to the particular principles of the British Constitution. It violates one of the oldest of our constitutional maxims...that taxation and representation should be co-extensive. Do not women pay taxes?
John Stuart MillRead
A kernel of truth lurks at the heart of religion, because spiritual experience, ethical behavior, and strong communities are essential for human happiness. And yet our religious traditions are intellectually defunct and politically ruinous. While spiritual experience is clearly a natural propensity of the human mind, we need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to actualize it.
Sam HarrisRead
If there were reason for these miseries, then into limits could I bind my woes. If the winds rages, doth not the sea wax mad, threat'ning the welkin with its big-swoll'n face? And wilt though have a reason for this coil? I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth blow. She is the weeping welkin, I the earth.
William ShakespeareRead
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
C. S. LewisRead