Julian of Norwich Quotes

Pray inwardly, even if you do not enjoy it. It does good, though you feel nothing. Yes, even though you think you are doing nothing.

For here we are so blind and foolish that we never seek God until he, of his goodness, shows himself to us. It is when we do see something of him by his grace that we are stirred by that same grace to seek him, and with earnest longing to see still more of his blessedness. So I saw him and sought him; I had him and wanted him. It seems to me that this is and should be an experience common to us all.

He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome.

The love that made Him to suffer passeth as far all His pains as Heaven is above Earth.

...the goodness of God is the highest object of prayer and it reaches down to our lowest need.

He did not say: You will not be assailed, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted, but he did said: You will not be overcome.

This is our Lord’s will, that our prayer and our trust be both alike large. For if we trust not as much as we pray, we do not full worship to our Lord in our prayer, and also we tarry and pain our self. The cause is, as I believe, that we know not truly that our Lord is Ground on whom our prayer springeth; and also that we know not that it is given us by the grace of His love. For if we knew this, it would make us to trust to have, of our Lord’s gift, all that we desire. For I am sure that no man asketh mercy and grace with true meaning, but if mercy and grace be first given to him.

God is all that is good, as to my sight, and the goodness that each thing hath, it is He.

He shall appear suddenly and blissfully to all that love Him.

God is nearer to us than our own spirit

Cheerful givers do not count the cost of what they give.

Love was without beginning, is, and shall be without ending.

The ground of mercy is love, and the working of mercy is our keeping in love. And this was shewed in such manner that I could not have perceived of the part of mercy but as it were alone in love; that is to say, as to my sight.

The Lord looks on his servants with pity and not with blame. In God's sight we do not fall; in our sight, we do not stand. Both of these are true, but the deeper insight belongs to God.

If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me. But this was shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love.

All that is contrary to love and peace is of the Fiend and of his part.

Our life is all grounded and rooted in love, and without love we may not live.

It is easy to understand that the best deed is well done: and so well as the best deed is done - the highest - so well is the least deed done; and all thing in its property and in the order that our Lord hath ordained it to from without beginning. For there is no doer but He.

... our natural Will is to have God, and the Good Will of God is to have us; and we may never cease from willing nor from longing till we have Him in fullness of joy: and then may we no more desire.

Everything has being through the love of God.

That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I shall save my word in all things and I shall make all things well.

Where do we begin? Begin with the heart.

God, of thy goodness, give me Thyself; for Thou art enough for me, and I can ask for nothing less that can be full honor to Thee. And if I ask anything that is less, ever Shall I be in want, for only in Thee have I all.

It needeth us to have knowing of the littleness of creatures and to hold as nought all-thing that is made, for to love and have God that is unmade.

The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything.

I was wholly at peace, at ease and at rest, so that there was nothing upon earth which could have afflicted me. This lasted for a time, and then I was changed ... I felt there was no ease or comfort for me except faith, hope and love, and truly I felt very little of this. And then presently God gave me again comfort and rest for my soul ... And then again I felt the pain, and then afterwards the delight and joy, now the one and now the other, again and again, I suppose about twenty times.

God loved us before he made us; and his love has never diminished and never shall.

Wherefore me behoveth needs to grant that all-thing that is done, it is well-done: for our Lord God doeth all.

Greatly ought we to rejoice that God dwells in our soul; and more greatly ought we to rejoice that our soul dwells in God. Our soul is created to be God’s dwelling place, and the dwelling of our souls is God, who is uncreated. It is a great understanding to see and know inwardly that God, who is our Creator, dwells in our soul, and it is a far greater understanding to see and know inwardly that our soul, which is created, dwells in God in substance, of which substance, though God, we are what we are.

But for I am a woman should I therefore live that I should not tell you the goodness of God?

Love and Dread are brethren, and they are rooted in us by the Goodness of our Maker, and they shall never be taken from us without end. We have of nature to love and we have of grace to love: and we have of nature to dread and we have of grace to dread.

Until I am essentially united with God, I can never have full rest or real happiness.

Prayer is the deliberate and persevering action of the soul. It is true and enduring, and full of grace. Prayer fastens the soul to God and makes it one with God's will.

My, how busy we become when we lose sight of how God loves us.

It is most impossible that we should beseech mercy and grace, and not have it.

A great thing shall I make hereof in Heaven of endless worship and everlasting joys.

He [Jesus] did not say, 'You will never have a rough passage, you will never be over-strained, you will never feel uncomfortable,' but he did say, 'You will never be overcome.

Where I say that He abideth sorrowfully and moaning, it meaneth all the true feeling that we have in our self, in contrition and compassion, and all sorrowing and moaning that we are not oned with our Lord. And all such that is speedful, it is Christ in us. And though some of us feel it seldom, it passeth never from Christ till what time He hath brought us out of all our woe. For love suffereth never to be without pity.

Wouldst thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love. Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same. But thou shalt never know nor learn therein other thing without end. Thus was I learned that Love was our Lord's meaning.

Prayer unites the soul to God.

The age of every man shall be acknowledged before him in Heaven, and every man shall be rewarded for his willing service and for his time.

He that made all things for love, by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep them without end.

I saw full surely that ere God made us He loved us; which love was never slacked, nor ever shall be. And in this love He hath done all His works; and in this love He hath made all things profitable to us; and in this love our life is everlasting. In our making we had beginning; but the love wherein He made us was in Him from without beginning: in which love we have our beginning. And all this shall we see in God, without end.

For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it. No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves them. It is only with the help of his grace that we are able to persevere in spiritual contemplation with endless wonder at his high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his goodness has for us.

The Elements of Prayer|Its ground: God, by whose goodness it springeth in us. |Its use: to turn our will to His will. |Its end: to be made one with Him and like to Him in all things.

Anything less then God, ever me wanteth.

The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck, but everything by God's wise providence. If it seems to be accident or luck from our point of view, our blindness and lack of foreknowledge is the cause; for matters that have been in God's foreseeing wisdom since before time began befall us suddenly, all unawares; and so in our blindness and ignorance we say that this is accident or luck, but to our Lord God it is not so.