Thomas Brooks Quotes & Sayings

Solomon got more hurt by his wealth, than he got good by his wisdom. — Thomas Brooks

Consider that the trials and troubles, the calamities and miseries, the crosses and losses that you meet with in this world, are all the hell that ever you shall have. — Thomas Brooks

Preach the gospel to yourself, because as you consider who you are in light of God's perfect goodness, holiness and peace, you must soften toward others. — Thomas Brooks

Secret sins commonly lie nearest the heart. — Thomas Brooks

Christ choosing solitude for private prayer, doth not only hint to us the danger of distraction and deviation of thoughts in prayer, but how necessary it is for us to choose the most convenient places we can for private prayer. Our own fickleness and Satan's restlessness call upon us to get into such places where we may freely pour out our soul into the bosom of God [Mark 1.35]. — Thomas Brooks

We trust as we love, and where we love. If we love Christ much, surely we shall trust him much. — Thomas Brooks

Judas called Christ Lord, Lord; and yet betrayed him, and has gone to his place. Ah! how many Judases have we in these days, that kiss Christ, and yet betray Christ; that in their words profess him - but in their works deny him; that bow their knee to him, and yet in their hearts despise him; that call him Jesus, and yet will not obey him for their Lord. — Thomas Brooks

#1. Spend more time considering evidences of grace in other Christians than you do pondering their sins and weaknesses. You, as a Christian, probably have a much greater ability to see weakness in other believers than to see strength. It is as if you use a magnifying glass when looking for weakness and a telescope when looking for grace. Brooks warns, "Sin is darkness, grace is light; sin is hell, grace is heaven; and what madness is it to look more at darkness than at light, more at hell than at heaven." Indeed. — Thomas Brooks

Your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing, and heaven shall make amends for all — Thomas Brooks

The sovereignty of God is that golden sceptre in his hand by which he will make all bow, either by his word or by his works, by his mercies or by his judgements. — Thomas Brooks

The best course to prevent falling into the pit is to keep at the greatest distance from it; he who will be so bold as to attempt to dance upon the brink of the pit, may find by woeful experience that it is a righteous thing with God that he should fall into the pit. — Thomas Brooks

God's hearing of our prayers doth not depend upon sanctification, but upon Christ's intercession; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what' we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons and our prayers are acceptable in the beloved [Eph 1.6]. — Thomas Brooks

A man's most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins, if he hath made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions. — Thomas Brooks

#3. Meditate on God's many commands demanding that we love one another. When you feel your heart begin to turn against another Christian, this is the time to turn to the many commands to love one another-commands found in places such as John 15:12, Romans 13:8, Hebrews 13:1, 1 John 4:7, 1 Peter 1:22, and so on. Allow God's Word to convict you of love's necessity. — Thomas Brooks

There are three things that earthly riches can never do; they can never satisfy divine justice, they can never pacify divine wrath, nor can they every quiet a guilty conscience. And till these things are done man is undone. — Thomas Brooks

A preacher's life should be a commentary upon his doctrine ... Heavenly doctrines should always be adorned with a heavenly life. — Thomas Brooks

Hope can see heaven through the thickest clouds. — Thomas Brooks

He is the best preacher, not that tickles the ear, but that breaks the heart. — Thomas Brooks

If you would have a clear evidence that little love, that little faith, that little zeal, you have is true? Then live up to that love, live up to that faith, live up to that zeal that you have; and this will be evidence beyond all contradiction. — Thomas Brooks

Much faith will yield unto us here our heaven, but any faith, if true, will yield us heaven hereafter. — Thomas Brooks

Better to bear than to swear, and to die than to lie. — Thomas Brooks

Grace and glory differ very little; the one is the seed, the other is the flower; grace is glory militant, glory is grace triumphant. — Thomas Brooks

When afflictions arrest us, we shall murmur and grumble and struggle until we see that it is God that strikes. — Thomas Brooks

Adversity hath slain her thousand, but prosperity her ten thousand. — Thomas Brooks

The power of religion and godliness lives, thrives, or dies, as closet prayer lives, thrives, or dies. Godliness never rises to a higher pitch than when men keep closest to their closets, etc. — Thomas Brooks

Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory due to His name, and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. The most praying souls are the most assured souls. — Thomas Brooks

How many threadbare souls are to be found under silken cloaks and gowns! — Thomas Brooks

Many eat that on earth that they digest in hell. — Thomas Brooks

A good conscience and a good confidence go together. — Thomas Brooks

[I]t is not hasty reading
but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee's touching of the flower, which gathers honey
but her abiding for a time upon the flower, which draws out the sweet. It is not he who reads most
but he who meditates most, who will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian. — Thomas Brooks

True repentance includes sorrow for sin and contrition of heart. It breaks the heart with sighs and sobs and groans ... — Thomas Brooks

Sin in a wicked man is like poison in a serpent; it is in its natural place. — Thomas Brooks

Saints spring and thrive most internally, when they are most externally afflicted. Afflictions are the mother of virtue. — Thomas Brooks

Satan paints sin with virtues colors. — Thomas Brooks

It is not he who knows most, nor he who hears most, nor yet he who talks most, but he who exercises grace most, who has most communion with God. — Thomas Brooks

A Christian will part with anything rather than his hope; he knows that hope will keep the heart both from aching and breaking, from fainting and sinking; he knows that hope is a beam of God, a spark of glory, and that nothing shall extinguish it till the soul be filled with glory. — Thomas Brooks

The greatest and the hottest fires that ever were on earth are but ice in comparison to the fire of hell. — Thomas Brooks

He who lives up to a little light shall have more light; he who lives up to a little knowledge shall have more knowledge; he who lives up to a little faith shall have more faith, and he who lives up to a little love shall have more love. Verily the main reason why men are such babes and shrubs in grace is because they do not live up their attainments. — Thomas Brooks

Ah! sinner, remember this, there is no way on earth effectually to be rid of the guilt, filth, and power of sin, but by believing in a Saviour. It is not resolving, it is not complaining, it is not mourning, but believing, that will make thee divinely victorious over that body of sin that to this day is too strong for thee, and that will certainly be thy ruin, if it be not ruined by a hand of faith. (Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 220) — Thomas Brooks

Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concerns. — Thomas Brooks

Those years, months, weeks, days, and hours, that are not filled up with God, with Christ, with grace, and with duty, will certainly be filled up with vanity and folly. The neglect of one day, of one duty, of one hour, would undo us, if we had not an Advocate with the Father. — Thomas Brooks

God hears no more than the heart speaks; and if the heart be dumb, God will certainly be deaf. — Thomas Brooks

He who stands upon his own strength will never stand. — Thomas Brooks

The world and you must part, or Christ and you will never meet. — Thomas Brooks

Prayer is nothing but the breathing that out before the Lord, that was first breathed into us by the Spirit of the Lord. — Thomas Brooks

Look, as a painted man is no man, and as painted fire is no fire, so a cold prayer is no prayer. — Thomas Brooks

Had many men spent but half that time in secret prayer, that they have spent in seeking after the philosopher's stone, how happy might they have been! — Thomas Brooks

Those sins that seem most sweet in life, will prove most bitter in death — Thomas Brooks

If God were not my friend, Satan would not be so much my enemy. — Thomas Brooks

The lazy Christian has his mouth full of complaints, when the active Christian has his heart full of comforts. — Thomas Brooks

He who puts on a religious demeanor abroad to gain himself a great name among men, and at the same time lives like an atheist at home, shall at the last be unmasked by God, and presented before all the world for a most detestable hypocrite. — Thomas Brooks

Christ is a most precious commodity, he is better than rubies or the most costly pearls; and we must part with our old gold, with our shining gold, our old sins, our most shining sins, or we must perish forever. Christ is to be sought and bought with any pains, at any price; we can not buy this gold too dear. He is a jewel more worth than a thousand worlds, as all know who have him. Get him, and get all; miss him and miss all. — Thomas Brooks

To repent of sin is as great a mark of grace as not to sin. — Thomas Brooks

When you have overcome one temptation, you must be ready to enter the lists with another. As distrust, in some sense, is the mother of safety, so security is the gate of danger. — Thomas Brooks

Remember this-all the sighing, mourning, sobbing, and complaining in the world, does not so undeniably evidence a man to be humble, as his overlooking his own righteousness, and living really and purely upon the righteousness of Christ. — Thomas Brooks

Sin is hell, grace is heaven; what madness it is to look more at hell than heaven. — Thomas Brooks

A family without prayer is like a house without a roof, open and exposed to all the storms of heaven. — Thomas Brooks

God sees us in secret, therefore, let, us seek his face in secret. Though heaven be God's palace, yet it is not his prison. — Thomas Brooks

A man full of hope will be full of action. — Thomas Brooks

Our sins are debts that none can pay but Christ. It is not our tears, but His blood; it is not our sighs, but His sufferings, that can testify for our sins. Christ must pay all, or we are prisoners forever. — Thomas Brooks

A gracious soul may look through the darkest cloud and see God smiling on him. — Thomas Brooks

An humble soul looks upon Christ's righteousness as his only crown. — Thomas Brooks

Christ dwells in that heart most eminently that hath emptied itself of itself. — Thomas Brooks

A well-grounded assurance is always attended with three fair handmaids: love, humility and holy joy. — Thomas Brooks

The giving way to a less sin makes way for the committing of a greater — Thomas Brooks

An implicit confession is almost as bad as an implicit faith; wicked men commonly confess their sins by wholesale, We are all sinners; but the true penitent confesses his sins by retail. — Thomas Brooks

An idle life and a holy heart is a contradiction. — Thomas Brooks

Ah, believer, it is only Heaven that is above all winds, storms, and tempests; God did not cast man out of Paradise that he might find another paradise in this world. — Thomas Brooks

Fire and water may as well agree in the same vessel, as grace and sin in the same heart. — Thomas Brooks

Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself. — Thomas Brooks

Though true repentance is never too late, yet late repentance is seldom true. — Thomas Brooks

A great lady(Queen Elizabeth )of England , on her dying bed cried out ,"call time again , call time again; a world of wealth for an inch of time !"but time past was never nor could never be recalled. — Thomas Brooks

It is better to have a sore than a seared conscience. — Thomas Brooks

The two poles could sooner meet, than the love of Christ and the love of the world. — Thomas Brooks

The only way to avoid cannon-shot is to fall down. No such way to be freed from temptation as to keep low. — Thomas Brooks

The best way to do ourselves good is to be doing good to others; the best way to gather is to scatter. — Thomas Brooks

Faith is the champion of Grace, and Love the nurse; but Humility is the beauty of Grace. — Thomas Brooks

Grace is given to trade with; it is given to lay out, not lay up. — Thomas Brooks

In a storm there is no shelter like the wings of God. — Thomas Brooks

What is honor, and riches, and the favor of creatures - so long as I lack the favor of God, the pardon of my sins, a saving interest in Christ, and the hope of glory! O Lord, give me these, or I die! Give me these, or else I shall eternally die! — Thomas Brooks

For great is truth, and shall prevail. — Thomas Brooks

Weak Christians are afraid of the shadow of the cross. — Thomas Brooks

Every man obeys Christ as he prizes Christ, not otherwise. — Thomas Brooks

Ambition is a gilded misery, a secret poison, a hidden plague, the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original of vices, the moth of holiness, the blinder of hearts, turning medicines into maladies, and remedies into diseases. — Thomas Brooks

Cold prayers always freeze before they reach heaven . — Thomas Brooks

God hath in Himself all power to defend you, all wisdom to direct you, all mercy to pardon you, all grace to enrich you, all righteousness to clothe you, all goodness to supply you, and all happiness to crown you. — Thomas Brooks

Greater sins do sooner startle the soul, and awaken and rouse up the soul to repentance, than lesser sins do. Little sins often slide into the soul, and breed, and work secretly and undiscernably in the soul, till they come to be so strong, as to trample upon the soul, and to cut the throat of the soul. — Thomas Brooks

Sin will usher in the greatest and the saddest losses that can be upon our souls. — Thomas Brooks

#4. Spend more time considering areas of agreement than disagreement. The doctrines you share with other true believers are the foundational doctrines; the ones you do not share are necessarily less central to the faith. Acknowledging that you and those with whom you disagree will spend eternity together should encourage you to not allow peripheral doctrines to separate you here on earth. — Thomas Brooks

Christ is lovely, Christ is very lovely, Christ is most lovely, Christ is always lovely, Christ is altogether lovely. — Thomas Brooks

Satan is never better pleased, than when he sees Christians puzzled and perplexed about those things in religion, which are of no great consequence or importance. — Thomas Brooks

Where truth goes, I will go, and where truth is I will be, and nothing but death shall divide me and the truth. — Thomas Brooks

When God's hand is on thy back, let thy hand be on thy mouth, for though the affliction be sharp it shall be but short. — Thomas Brooks

There is no such way to get much grace, as to be thankful for a little grace. He who opens his mouth wide in praise, shall have his heart lled with graces. Ingratitude stops the ear of God, and shuts the hand of God, and turns away the heart of the God of grace; and therefore we had need to be thankful for a little grace. — Thomas Brooks

Till men have faith in Christ, their best services are but glorious sins. — Thomas Brooks

The Lord Jesus ... sweetens all other gifts that are bestowed upon the sons of men. He turns every bitter into sweet, and makes every sweet more sweet. — Thomas Brooks

Pleasures seem solid in their pursuit; but are mere clouds in the enjoyment. — Thomas Brooks

Though there is nothing more dangerous, yet there is nothing more ordinary, than for weak saints to make their sense and feeling the judge of their condition. We must strive to walk by faith. — Thomas Brooks

It was a precept of Pythagoras, that when we enter into the temple to worship God , we must not so much as speak or think of any worldly business, lest we make God's service an idle ,perfunctory, and lazy recreation. The same I may say of closet prayer. — Thomas Brooks

The moment we give into temptation, Satan immediately changes his strategy and becomes the accuser. Thomas Brooks — Thomas Brooks