I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own; who seeks my salvation, and not his own vain glory. He best deserves to be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts only to promote truth and virtue.
Jean Baptiste MassillonNothing is more detestable than a professed declaimer who retails his discourses as a quack does his medicines.
Jean Baptiste MassillonWhatever passes away is too vile to be the price of time, which is itself the price of eternity.
Jean Baptiste MassillonWe die every day; every moment deprives us of a portion of life and advances us a step toward the grave; our whole life is only along and painful sickness.
Jean Baptiste MassillonYes, great God, these torrents of tears which flow down from my eyes announce thy divine presence in my soul. This heart hitherto so dry, so arid, so hard; this rock which thou hast struck a second time, will not resist thee any longer, for out of it there now gushes healthful waters in abundance. The selfsame voice of God which overturns the mountains, thunders, lightens, and divides the heaven above, now commands the clouds to pour forth showers of blessings, changing the desert of his soul into a field producing a hundredfold; that voice I hear.
Jean Baptiste Massillon