“Maybe you once were excited about that person God supernaturally brought into your life as a marriage partner, but now all the excitement has worn off. Don’t’ allow that sense of a miracle to slip away. Don’t get so familiar with each other that you take one another for granted.”

“Most illness begins with a negative mind.”

“Since we cannot see Christ, we cannot express our love to Him. But we do see our neighbor, and we can do for him what we would do for Christ if He were visible.”

“A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others...thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people’s rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish.”

“The mourning of inadequacy is a weeping that catches the attention of God . . .The happiest day of my life was when I realized that my own ability, my own goodness, my own morality was insufficient in the sight of God; and I publicly and openly acknowledged my need of Christ.”

“the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

“Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

“How little wives may realize that a biting, stinging word in the morning will rob a husband of efficiency the whole day long. But a loving, tender, beautiful word—a little prayer word—will fill him with music and will lead him into victory.” 

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”

“I saw that a man of truth must also be a man of care.”

“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,’ then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from ‘being in love’ — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. it is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.”

“We like everything instantaneous. We have the fruit of patience inside, but it is being worked to the outside. Sometimes God takes His time about bringing us our full deliverance. He uses the difficult period of waiting to stretch our faith and to let patience have her perfect work (see James 1:4 KJV). God’s timing is perfect. He is never late.”

“In Varenka, she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble.”

“No hay felicidad en la existencia, no hay más que relámpagos de felicidad.”

“Jessica stopped beside him: ‘What delicious abandon in the sleep of a child.’ He spoke mechanically: ‘If only adults could relax like that.’  ‘Yes.’ ‘When do we lose it?’ He murmured… ‘We do indeed lose something,’ she said.”