Johannes Tauler

Judge yourself; if you do that you will not be judged by God, as St. Paul says. But it must be a real sense of your own sinfulness, not an artificial humility.

Man must do his part and detach himself from created things.

Often when He comes, He finds the soul occupied. Other guests are there, and He has to turn away. He cannot gain entry, for we love and desire other things; therefore, His gifts, which He is offering to everyone unceasingly, must remain outside.

Give yourself entirely to God, enter and hide in the hidden ground of your soul.

Let God and all his creation teach you what your sins are.

As a good wine must be kept in a good cask, so a wholesome body is the proper foundation for a well-appointed inner ground.

Your meditations may be as profound, as exalted, as devout as you like; you may practise every pious exercise you can manage, but all this is as nothing in comparison with the Blessed Sacrament. What we do may be godly, but this sacrament is God Himself!

Because in the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.

God in His wisdom has decided that He will reward no works but His own.

Never believe that true prayer consists in mere babbling, reciting so many psalms and vigils, saying your beads while you allow your thoughts to roam.

If we really want to achieve true prayer, we must turn our backs upon everything temporal, everything external, everything that is not divine.

You don't have to leave the world to be holy and grow closer to the Holy One.