Guyon Quotes & Sayings

There are two means by which we may be led into the higher forms of prayer. One is Meditation, the other is Meditative Reading. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Oh, that we fully understood how very opposite our self-righteousness is to the designs of God! — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

A person truly humbled permits not anything to put him in a rage. As it is pride which dies the last in the soul, so it is passion which is last destroyed in the outward conduct. A soul thoroughly dead to itself, finds nothing of rage left. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

To have time for it, I left off prayer which was to me the first inlet of evils. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Some persons, when they hear of the prayer of silence, falsely imagine that the soul remains stupid, dead, and inactive. But unquestionably, it acteth therein more nobly and more extensively than it had ever done before; for God himself is the mover, and the soul now acteth by the agency of His spirit. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

God causes us to promise in time of peace what He exacts from us in time of war; He enables us to make our abandonments in joy, but He requires the fulfilment of them in the midst of much bitterness. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

We must, however, urge it as a matter of the highest import, to cease from self-action and self-exertion, that God himself may act alone: He saith by the mouth of his prophet David: "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). But the creature is so infatuated with a love and attachment to its own workings, that it imagines nothing at all is done if it does not perceive and distinguish all its operations. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Let no one ask a stronger mark of an excellent love to God, than that we are insensible to our own reputation. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

God's designs regarding you, and His methods of bringing about these designs, are infinitely wise. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

If while reading, you feel yourself recollected, lay aside the book and remain in stillness; at all times read but little, and cease to read when you're thus internally attracted. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

If knowing answers to life's questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it. For this is a journey of unknowables
of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and most of all, things unfair. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Be patient in prayer, even though you should do nothing all your life but wait in patience, with a heart humbled, abandoned, resigned, and content for the return of your Beloved. Oh, excellent prayer! How it moves the heart of God, and obliges Him to return more than anything else! — Madame Guyon

Surrender yourselves then to be led and disposed of just as God pleases, with respect both to your outward and inward state. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Those who tread these paths should be informed of a matter respecting their confession in which they are apt to err. When they begin to give an account of their sins, instead of the regret and contrition they had been accustomed to feel, they find that love and tranquility sweetly pervade and take possession of their souls: now those who are not properly instructed are desirous of withdrawing from this sensation to form an act of contrition, because they have heard, and with truth, that it is requisite: but they are not aware that they lose thereby the genuine contrition, which is this Intuitive Love, infinitely surpassing any effect produced by self-exertion ... Be not then troubled about other things when God acts so excellently in you and for you. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

It is the fire of suffering that brings forth the gold of godliness. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

My earnest wish is to paint in true colors the goodness of God to me, and the depth of my own ingratitude — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Self-seeking is the gate by which a soul departs from peace; and total abandonment to the will of God, that by which it returns. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

The more wants we have, the further we are from God, and the nearer we approach him, the better can we dispense with everything that is not Himself. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

All consolation that does not come from God is but desolation; when the soul has learned to receive no comfort but in God only, it has passed beyond the reach of desolation. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

It is a great truth, wonderful as it is undeniable, that all our happiness temporal, spiritual, and eternal consists in one thing; namely, in resigning ourselves to God, and in leaving ourselves with Him, to do with us and in us just as He pleases. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

The most interesting inconsistency in thought is connected with the Bower of Bliss. This passage
the twelfth canto of the second Book
is probably the best known in the whole poem and the most frequently cited as an example of Spenser's sensuous beauty. Professor de Selincourt writes: 'Those who blame Spenser for lavishing the resources of his art upon this canto, and filling it with magic beauty, have never been at the heart of the experience it shadows. It is from the ravishing loveliness of all that surrounds and leads to the Bower of Acrasia that she herself draws her almost irresistible power. When Guyon has bound Acrasia and destroyed the Bower of Bliss he has achieved his last and hardest victory. — Janet Spens

Prayer is the key of perfection and of sovereign happiness; it is the efficacious means of getting rid of all vices and of acquiring all virtues; for the way to become perfect is to live in the presence of God. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

He who has a pure heart will never cease to pray; and he who will be constant in prayer, shall know what it is to have a pure heart. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

The only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing. Let the poor come, let the ignorant and carnal come; let the children without reason or knowledge come, let the dull or hard hearts which can retain nothing come to the practice of prayer and they shall become wise. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

In your occupations, try to possess your soul in peace. It is not a good plan to be in haste to perform any action that it may be the sooner over. On the contrary, you should accustom yourself to do whatever you have to do with tranquillity, in order that you may retain the possession of yourself and of settled peace. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

The soul seeks God by faith, not by the reasonings of the mind and labored efforts, but by the drawings of love; to which inclinations God responds, and instructs the soul, which co-operates actively. God then puts the soul in a passive state where He accomplishes all, causing great progress, first by way of enjoyment, then by privation, and finally by pure love. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Andrew Murray once said that what the church and individuals have to dread is the inordinate activity of the soul with its power of mind and will. F. B. Meyer declared that had he not known about the dividing of spirit and soul, he could not have imagined what his spiritual life would have been. Many others, such as Otto Stockmayer, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Evan Roberts, Madame Guyon, have given the same testimony. — Watchman Nee

The soul should not be surprised at feeling itself unable to offer up to God such petitions as it had formally made with freedom and facility; for now the Spirit maketh intercession for it according to the will of God ("with sighs too deep for words" - Romans 8:26-27). — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

This spirit gradually decayed, not being nourished by prayer. I became cold toward God. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

We never know how strongly we cling to objects until they are taken away, and he who thinks htat he is attached to nothing, is frequently grandly mistaken, being bound to a thousand things, unknown to himself. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

To rob God of nothing; to refuse Him nothing; to require of Him nothing; this is great perfection. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

O my God, how true it is that we may have of Thy gifts and yet may be full of ourselves! — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Whatever truth you have chosen, read only a small portion of it, endeavouring to taste and digest it, to extract the essence and substance thereof, and proceed no farther while any savour or relish remains in the passage: when this subsides, pick up your book again and proceed as before, seldom reading more than half a page at a time, for it is not the quantity that is read, but the manner of reading, that yields us profit. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

He destroys that he might build; for when He is about to rear His sacred temple in us, He first totally razes that vain and pompous edifice, which human art and power had erected, and from its horrible ruins a new structure is formed, by His power only. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

The very discovery of these hidden things is in itself a purifying experience! The soul needs to discover what is inside. The self nature needs to see what it really is, and what it is like-right to the very bottom. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

It is only by a total death to self we can be lost in God. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Ah, if you knew what peace there is in an accepted sorrow! — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

The devil is outrageous only against prayer, and those that exercise it; because he knows it is the true means of taking his prey from him. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Come, ye dull, ignorant, and illiterate, ye who think yourselves the most incapable of prayer! Ye are more peculiarly called and adapted thereto. Let all without exception come, for Jesus Christ hath called all.
Yet let not those come who are without a heart; they are not asked; for there must be a heart, that there may be love. But who is without a heart? Oh come, then, give this heart to God; and here learn how to make the donation. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

To pastors and teachers
Compose catechisms particularly to teach prayer, not by reasoning nor by method, for the simple are incapable thereof; but to teach the prayer of the heart, not of the understanding; the prayer of God's Spirit, not of man's invention.
Alas! By wanting them to pray in elaborate forms ... you create their chief obstacles. The children have been led astray from the best of fathers, by your endeavouring to teach them too refined, too polished a language ...
A father is much better pleased with an address which love and respect in the child throws into disorder, because he knows it proceeds from the heart, than by a formal and barren harangue, though ever so elaborate in the composition. The simple and undisguised emotions of filial love are infinitely more expressive than all language and all reasoning. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32). — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

My soul was not only brought into harmony with itself and with God, but with God's providence. In the exercise of faith and love, I endured and performed whatever came in God's providence, in submission, in thankfulness, and silence. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of the Eternal Word. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Secrets of the incomprehensible wisdom of God, unknown to any besides Himself! Man, sprung up only of a few days, wants to penetrate, and to set bounds to it. Who is it that hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counselor? — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

I have never found any who prayed so well as those who had never been taught how. They who have no master in man, have one in the Holy Spirit. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

As one sees a river pass into the ocean, lose itself in it, its water for a time distinguished from that of the sea, till it gradually becomes transformed into the same sea, and possesses all its qualities; so was my soul lost in God, who communicated to it His qualities, having drawn it out of all that it had of its own. Its life is an inconceivable innocence, not known or comprehended of those who are still shut up in themselves or only live for themselves. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Oh, my God, if the value of prayer were but known, the great advantage which accrues to the soul from conversing with Thee, and what consequence it is of to salvation, everyone would be assiduous in it. It is a stronghold into which the enemy cannot enter. He may attack it, besiege it, make a noise about its walls; but while we are faithful and hold our station, he cannot hurt us. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

This prayer is not mental, but of the heart. It is not a prayer of thought alone, because the mind of man is so limited, that while it is occupied with one thing it cannot be thinking of another. But it is the PRAYER OF THE HEART, which cannot be interrupted by the occupations of the mind. Nothing can interrupt the prayer of the heart but unruly affections; and when once we have tasted of the love of God, it is impossible to find our delight in anything but Himself. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

We should accept indiscriminately all His dispensations, whether obscurity or illumination, fruitfulness or barrenness, weakness or strength, sweetness or bitterness, temptations, distractions, pain, weariness, or doubtings; and none of all these should, for one moment retard our course. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon