32 Inspiring Quotes From Saints

In our fast-paced world, finding moments of inspiration can be challenging. Yet, throughout history, saints have offered profound wisdom and guidance through their words. These revered figures from various religious traditions have shared insights that transcend time and culture, offering solace, motivation, and a deeper understanding of life's journey. In this blog post, we bring you a handpicked selection of 32 inspiring quotes from saints. These quotes not only provide a glimpse into the minds of these holy individuals but also serve as a guiding light to ignite your own spiritual and personal growth. Whether you're seeking comfort, clarity, or courage, these timeless words are sure to resonate with your heart and mind.

1. “Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.” - Anne Sexton

2. “The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)” - St. Augustine of Hippo

3. “God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.” - Soren Kierkegaard

4. “Don't fool yourself, my dear. You're much worse than a bitch. You're a saint. Which shows why saints are dangerous and undesirable.” - Ayn Rand

5. “I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.” - Billy Joel

6. “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.” - Nelson Mandela

7. “Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets.” - George Eliot

8. “Saint Anthony said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

9. “It is no sign of benediction to have been obsessed with the lives of saints, for it is an obsession intertwined with a taste for maladies and hunger for depravities. One only troubles oneself with saints because one has been disappointed by the paradoxes of earthly life; one therefore searches out other paradoxes, more outlandish in guise, redolent of unknown truths, unknown perfumes...” - Emil Cioran

10. “It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written.” - Karl Marx

11. “We would never call inexplicable little insights 'hunches,' for fear of drawing the universe's attention. But they happened, and you knew you had been in the proximity of one that had come through if you saw a detective kiss his or her fingers and touch his or her chest where a pendant to Warsha, patron saint of inexplicable inspirations, would, theoretically, hang.” - China Miéville

12. “Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.” - Francis of Assisi

13. “Saints are those who managed to love more than we did.” - Sorin Cerin

14. “...the dead have a way of becoming saints in the eyes of their survivors...” - Rachel Vincent

15. “What's that you're doing, Sassenach?""Making out little Gizmo's birth certificate--so far as I can," I added."Gizmo?" he said doubtfully. "That will be a saint's name?""I shouldn't think so, though you never know, what with people named Pantaleon and Onuphrius. Or Ferreolus.""Ferreolus? I dinna think I ken that one." He leaned back, hands linked over his knee."One of my favorites," I told him, carefully filling in the birthdate and time of birth--even that was an estimate, poor thing. There were precisely two bits of unequivocal information on this birth certificate--the date and the name of the doctor who's delivered him."Ferreolus," I went on with some new enjoyment, "is the patron saint of sick poultry. Christian martyr. He was a Roman tribune and a secret Christian. Having been found out, he was chained up in the prison cesspool to await trial--I suppose the cells must have been full. Sounds rather daredevil; he slipped his chains and escaped through the sewer. They caught up with him, though, dragged him back and beheaded him."Jamie looked blank."What has that got to do wi' chickens?""I haven't the faintest idea. Take it up with the Vatican," I advised him."Mmphm. Aye, well, I've always been fond of Saint Guignole, myself." I could see the glint in his eye, but couldn't resist."And what's he the patron of?""He's involved against impotence." The glint got stronger. "I saw a statue of him in Brest once; they did say it had been there for a thousand years. 'Twas a miraculous statue--it had a cock like a gun muzzle, and--""A what?""Well, the size wasna the miraculous bit," he said, waving me to silence. "Or not quite. The townsfolk say that for a thousand years, folk have whittled away bits of it as holy relics, and yet the cock is still as big as ever." He grinned at me. "They do say that a man w' a bit of St. Guignole in his pocket can last a night and a day without tiring.""Not with the same woman, I don't imagine," I said dryly. "It does rather make you wonder what he did to merit sainthood, though, doesn't it?"He laughed."Any man who's had his prayer answered could tell yet that, Sassenach."(PP. 841-842)” - Diana Gabaldon

16. “There is a bench in the back of my garden shaded by Virginia creeper, climbing roses, and a white pine where I sit early in the morning and watch the action. Light blue bells of a dwarf campanula drift over the rock garden just before my eyes. Behind it, a three-foot stand of aconite is flowering now, each dark blue cowl-like corolla bowed for worship or intrigue: thus its common name, monkshood. Next to the aconite, black madonna lilies with their seductive Easter scent are just coming into bloom. At the back of the garden, a hollow log, used in its glory days for a base to split kindling, now spills white cascade petunias and lobelia. I can't get enough of watching the bees and trying to imagine how they experience the abundance of, say, a blue campanula blosssom, the dizzy light pulsing, every fiber of being immersed in the flower. ...Last night, after a day in the garden, I asked Robin to explain (again) photosynthesis to me. I can't take in this business of _eating light_ and turning it into stem and thorn and flower...I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden. Maybe I would call it eating light. Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice: _apophatic mysticism_, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and _kataphatic mysticism_, less well defined: an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation. Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole, a kataphatic mystic, as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts: but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles. Francis and Thérèse were made, really made, any mother superior will let you know, in the dark nights of their lives: no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God's arms.When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period, my grandmother took me aside and said, 'Now your childhood is over. You will never really be happy again.' That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism.But, I'm sorry, I'm going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.” - Mary Rose O'Reilley

17. “Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.” - Criss Jami

18. “Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is possible that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never had much temptation to be human beings.” - George Orwell

19. “the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

20. “What if the church should be less concerned with creating saints than creating a world where we do not need saints? A world where people like Mother Teresa and MLK would have nothing to do.” - Peter Rollins

21. “The faithful clamoured to be buried alongside the martyrs, as close as possible to the venerable remains, a custom which, in anthropological terms, recalls Neolithic beliefs that certain human remains possessed supernatural properties. It was believed that canonized saints did not rot, like lesser mortals, but that their corpses were miraculously preserved and emanated an odour of sanctity, a sweet, floral smell, for years after death. In forensic terms, such preservation is likely to be a result of natural mummification in hot, dry conditions.” - Catharine Arnold

22. “In a vivid parable to Soeur Philippine Molinéry, Bernadette asks, "What do you do with a broom when you're done sweeping?" Soeur Philippine got surprised and answered, "What kind of a Question is that?""Yes, I am asking you where you put it when you are done with it?"'....In a corner behind the door.'Then gleefully Bernadette said, "Well, I was like a broomstick for the Blessed Virgin; when she no longer needed me, she put me in my place behind the door.'And with a clap of her hands, she added, "Here I am and here I'll stay.""Both her voice and gesture were very happy," the witness went on to say.” - St. Bernadette

23. “For most people there is a fascinating inconsistency in the position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water as it fell from his finger; he was perhaps the happiest of the sons of men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation of what we think of the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience he denied to himself, and those he loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a monk and not a troubadour? We have a suspicion that if these questions were answered we should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours was answered also.” - G.K. Chesterton

24. “If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint. And if you wish to become a great saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for His own great sacrifice of boundless charity.” - St. Ignatius of Loyola

25. “Look at our fathers in the old days, living masterpieces as they are and shining examples of true religion; and see how feeble our own achievement is, almost nothing. Heaven help us, what is our life in comparison with theirs? Holy people these, true friends of Christ, that could go hungry and thirsty in God's service; cold and ill-clad, worn out with labors and vigils and fasting, with praying and meditating on holy things, with all the persecutions and insults they endured.” - Thomas A. Kempis

26. “Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.” - G.K. Chesterton

27. “The pages of history are red with the blood of illuminated "saints" who were murdered by their religions for actually achieving the advertised spiritual rewards.” - Christopher S. Hyatt

28. “Pray without ceasing on behalf of other men...For cannot he that falls rise again?” - Ignatius of Antioch

29. “Constantine saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing this inscription: conquer by this. At the sight, he himself was struck with amazement and his whole army also.” - Eusebius

30. “God’s love for the biggest sinner is greater than the love of the holiest man for God” - Arsenie Boca

31. “Don't canonize me too soon. I'm perfectly capable of fathering a child.” - St. Francis Of Assisi

32. “Saints are sinners who kept on going.” - Robert Louis Stevenson