Adrienne von Speyr

“To me, it was not at all disagreeable to be treated as a precious, unique being, because I belonged to God.”

“When we make our own calculations, we need so many numbers and factors that any mistake is possible. The Lord's calculation boils down to love.”

“Ultimate audacity: to want to love a person—to say nothing of one's neighbor!—as God loves him.”

“The first step in learning to love others is the attempt to understand them.”

“Only faith can keep what hope promises.”

“Christian hope is a vessel in which faith lives; love carries it.”

“Whoever wants to love is better knowing nothing than too much.”

“Once a scientific question is settled, it remains interesting and alive only if it draws attention to new questions; every conclusion is meant as a transition to a new beginning.”

“There is already so much grace in a Christian body. Can you imagine how much grace there is in a soul?”

“The sins of others can never become the measure of your own.”

“If there were just one possibility—either to do the good or to combat evil—man would have to opt for the first.”

“When we sin, we think we are geniuses; when we confess, we know we are idiots.”

“The ability to suffer and the ability to love are one.”

“Suffering without faith would be like love without hope.”

“If there had been no Judas, Peter would be the great betrayer. It is only because he stands in the framework of a still greater betrayal that we find a thousand excuses for him and for the faults of the Church continuing and occurring over and over again.”

“There is an intensification of negative force at work in the apostate. He resembles a man who works swiftly and surely to erect a wall in order to make the Lord's image, which he knows exactly, disappear and become unrecognizable behind it.”

“The Lord gives his whole innocent spirit to the Father and keeps only our own sinful spirit back for himself. In this way he can carry sin as if he himself had committed it.”