John Flavel Quotes

Strive to close the eyes of the body and open those of the soul and look into your own heart.

I'm always soul searching on a spiritual level.

Gently resist the temptation to chase your dreams into the world; pursue them in your heart until they disappear into the Self, and leave them there.

The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.

I would say to today's young minister, 'Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation'.

One must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.

The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude.

BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there.

We've known about the transcendent power of solitude for centuries; it's only recently that we've forgotten it.

Cultivating quietness is a missing discipline today...the quietness needed to nurture an inner life hid in Christ.

Each one of us needs time and space for recollection, meditation and calmness.... Thanks be to God that this is so! In fact, this need tells us that we are not made for work alone, but also to think, to reflect or even simply to follow with our minds and our hearts a tale, a story in which to immerse ourselves, in a certain sense to lose ourselves to find ourselves subsequently enriched.

Let mystery have its place in you ; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.

Do not scrutinize so closely whether you are doing much or little, ill or well, so long as what you do is not sinful and that you are heartily seeking to do everything for God. Try as far as you can to do everything well, but when it is done, do not think about it. Try, rather, to think of what is to be done next. Go on simply in the Lord's way, and do not torment yourself. We ought to hate our faults, but with a quiet, calm hatred; not pettishly and anxiously.

By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear. Dare to look in thy chest; for 'Tis thine own: And tumble up and down what thou findst there. Who cannot rest till he good fellows find, he breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind.

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Solitude is the place of purification.

You'll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart.

Recounting of a life story, a mind thinking aloud leads one inevitably to the consideration of problems which are no longer psychological but spiritual.

The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart.

We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly - spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.

When you walk 10 hours, 11 hours a day by yourself, you are doing a walking meditation.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.