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The appetites weaken a person's virtue because they are like shoots burgeoning about a tree, sapping its strength, and causing it to be fruitless.

— John of the Cross

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More quotes by John of the Cross

There is nothing better or more necessary than love.

At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.

the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2002)

One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it.

In a word, it is for this love that we are all created.

When the soul, then, in any degree possesses the spirit of solitary love, we must not interfere with it.

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

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The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

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Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John of the Cross (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.