Love, Life, and Virtue

(197 quotes)

An unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates

The journey from head to heart is the longest journey you will ever take.
Mark Hart

If worry is good for anything, it’s good for one thing: What we worry about reveals where our heart is.
Father Mike Schmitz

Memento mori (Latin for “Remember that you will die”).
Ancient phrase

Sometimes you have to think about your death in order to start thinking about your life.

You don’t have to find out you’re dying to start living.
Zach Sobiech

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Hate the sin. Love the sinner.

Fall in love and take careful notes.
Christopher J. Thompson

Practice love.

The six things in life that never get boring are knowing and loving God, your neighbor, and yourself.
Peter Kreeft

You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it.
G.K. Chesterton

Love, to be real, must cost. It must hurt. It must empty us of self.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Don’t worry unless it’s a salvation issue.
Annie Fochtman

The way we live our days is the way we live our lives.
Anne Dillard

People don’t join organizations. People join people.

Love suffers.
Father Jeff Huard

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
Saint Augustine

We eat to live, not live to eat.

It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.
Blessed Mother Teresa

There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives – the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them.
Blessed Mother Teresa

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
G.K. Chesterton

If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. 

Adversity introduces us to ourselves.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi

You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
C.S. Lewis

This is the first day of the rest of your life.
Matt Maher, from the song “Hold Us Together”

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. Perhaps that is why it is called the present.

Self-help love says, “I gotta take care of myself before I can take care of anyone else”. But that’s not true. In taking care of others you’ll take care of yourself.
Father Larry Richards

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.
Ferris Bueller, from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

I tried being normal, but it got boring, so I went back to being myself.

Where there is love, sacrifice is easy.
Priest from the short film, Fishers of Men

First we make our habits, then our habits make us.
Charles C. Noble

What we love we shall grow to resemble.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

It is in giving that we receive.
Saint Francis of Assisi

The past is often a prologue to the future.

What I can do, you cannot. What you can do, I cannot. But together we can do something beautiful for God.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Don’t look down on anyone unless you are helping them up.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
Anne Frank

Do not wait for leaders.
Blessed Mother Teresa

We all know that life is a test. But not many of us realize that each person has a different test. And fewer still remember that it’s a timed test.
Molly Davies

I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.
G.K. Chesterton

With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon.
Albert Einstein

The creator of the heavens obeys a carpenter; the God of eternal glory listens to a poor virgin. Has anyone ever witnessed anything comparable to this? Let the philosopher no longer disdain from listening to the common laborer; the wise, to the simple; the educated, to the illiterate; a child of a prince, to a peasant.
Saint Anthony of Padua

If you dwell on the past, you will miss the present.

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.
David P. Campbell

I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.
Andy, from the movie The Shawshank Redemption

Every journey towards something is a journey away from something.
Matthew Kelly

Worrying is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.
Coach John Wooden

Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence.
Saint Augustine

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

The person who does not decide to love forever will find it very difficult to really love for even one day.
Saint John Paul the Great

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in our hearts.
A.A. Milne

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction. Break the habit. Talk about your joys.
Rita Schiano

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.
G.K. Chesterton

From the movie It’s a Wonderful Life…
Angel in Heaven: “A man [George Bailey] down on earth needs our help.”
Clarence: “Splendid! Is he sick?”
Angle in Heaven: “No, worse. He’s discouraged.”

I’m still trying to discover what makes for “the good life”, but I have a suspicion it involves following Jesus to the bitter end.
Adam McHugh

Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning.
Blessed John Henry Newman

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Life with Christ is a wonderful adventure.
Saint John Paul the Great

The most powerful thing you can do on earth is the will of God.
Crystalina Evert

Every choice is a thousand renunciations. To choose one thing is to turn one’s back on many others.
Father Ronald Rolheiser

As a Christian, losing hope is not an option.
Chris Stefanik

You can have everything, yet have nothing, and have nothing, yet have everything.
Hannah Bierbaum

If we’re afraid to be different, how can we make a difference in the world?

Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola

The reason God gives us gifts is so we can give them away.
Father Sean McGraw

Jesus isn’t so much concerned with where you’ve been but with where you’re going.

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Love begins at home.
Blessed Mother Teresa

This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.
From the movie Fight Club

If you’re going to be a follower, find a good leader.

You were born an original, don’t die a copy.

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

Talk about your blessings more than you talk about your burdens.
Tim Tebow

The greatest gift you can give someone is your time. Because when you give your time, you are giving a portion of your life that you will never get back.

Don’t say, “That person bothers me.” Think: “That person sanctifies me”.
Saint Josemaría Escrivá

If you are beautiful on the inside, you will shine on the outside!

Mary was not full of grace because she was beautiful; she was beautiful because she was full of grace.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen

If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything.

When you die you don’t want people to just say, “He was a good guy” or “She was a nice girl”. You want them to say, “WHOA. That was intense!”
Father Mike Schmitz

I’m too blessed to be stressed, too anointed to be disappointed, and if hope were money, I’d be a millionaire.
Jesse Romero

To live without Faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for Truth, that is not living, but existing.
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

Take control. Feed your soul.

Good people make bad people uncomfortable.
Daniel Flynn

Old Monk: “Perfect love casts out fear.”
Novice: “Of what am I afraid?”
Old Monk: “Perfect love.”
Anthony de Mello

Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.

Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Sally Berger

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
Blessed Mother Teresa

When you’re feeling down, look up!
Grace Kopischke

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
Dr. Seuess, from The Lorax

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
Saint Augustine

The company you keep helps determine the trouble you meet.

A person is never so empty as when he is full of self.

Dreams are safe. Goals are not.
Father Mike Schmitz

“Follow your heart” can be one of the worst pieces of advice. Instead, “Follow your God” or at the very least, “Do the right thing!”
Trent Horn

Have the courage “to swim against the tide”. Have the courage to be happy.
Pope Francis

Be the kind of woman who, when you hit the floor in the morning the devil says, “Oh no, she’s up”.

Be the kind of man who, when you hit the floor in the morning the devil says, “Oh no, he’s up”.

If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them.
Zig Zagler

Please waste time just playing with your kids!
Pope Francis

The whole point of life is to learn to be a gift.
Father Mike Schmitz

There are some who do not fear death for they are more afraid of not really living.
Ancient Proverb

The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were the last.
Saint Philip Neri

Commitment is doing what you said you would do, after the feeling you said it in has passed.
Saint Camillus

Sometimes you have to walk before you run.

It’s not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years.
Noah Couser

As parents, our number one teaching tool is ourselves.
Caitlin Marchand

What you do transforms you.
John Psychowski

To try is to risk failure. Not to try is to guarantee it.
Patrick Coffin

Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.
Dumbledore, from the Harry Potter series

Get off social media and be social.
Dave Rinaldi

Dear young people, you have many plans and dreams for the future. But, is Christ at the center of each of your plans and dreams?
Pope Francis

Today people are suffering from poverty, but also from lack of love.
Pope Francis

One should not say that it is impossible to reach a virtuous life; but one should say that it is not easy. Nor do those who have reached it find it easy to maintain.
Saint Anthony of the Desert

If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Write your plans in pencil, then give God the eraser.

Having a good day? Thank God for it. Struggling through a bad day? Invite God into it. Just another “ordinary” day? Find God in it. 
And every day praise God, for life is a gift never to be wasted.
Mark Hart

Serving the Lord is its own reward.
Natalia Alfonzo

Health is God’s great gift, and we must spend it entirely for Him. Our eyes should see only for God, our feet walk only for Him, our hands labor for Him alone; in short, our entire body should serve God while we still have the time. Then, when He shall take our health and we shall near our last day, our conscience will not reproach us for having misused it.
Saint John Bosco

Your real life is your spiritual life. And both are going to be awful until you realize that they are not separate things.
Jordan Taylor

I don’t have time is the grownup version of “My dog ate my homework.”

A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Wayne Gretzky

The future is better for the people that make the best of the past.

You can usually tell by the look on someone’s face if they woke up counting their problems or their blessings.
Mark Hart

In prayer I find myself pondering the Magi’s trip home – their bags and boxes empty but their hearts quite full.
Mark Hart

We must not become so preoccupied looking for “major” miracles that we miss all the daily ones.
Mark Hart

The funny thing about the boy who gave away his loaves and fish is that he, too, ended the day with a full stomach.
Mark Hart

You can’t have more than one most important thing in your life. So here’s the question: What is your one most important thing?
Father Mike Schmitz

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.
C.S. Lewis

Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.
Blessed Pope Paul VI

You change your life by changing your heart.
Saint Benedict of Nursia

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

Most people spend more time learning wisdom than applying it.

You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones.
Saint Augustine

We all give our lives to something – whether we know it or not.

Life’s too short not to tell the people you love how you feel. Say it… and say it often. Oh, and start with God.
Mark Hart

No matter how hard you try, you can never quite catch cool.
Matthew Gross

Dead Last Finish is greater than Did Not Finish, which trumps Did Not Start.

Rules without a relationship leads to rebellion.

The three most important virtues are humility, humility, and humility.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Never complain about growing old… Some never have the privilege.
Mark Hart

“Love one another”: No command is simpler; no command more difficult.
Mark Hart

The truest friends are usually the ones telling you what you don’t want to hear.
Mark Hart

Rules for today: 1) Pray 2) Laugh 3) Repeat. The only reason to take this life too seriously is if it’s your only one.
Mark Hart

As I get older I’ve come to realize that the best way to “get even” with someone is to forgive – and then forget.
Mark Hart

Stress will either drive you crazy or drive you to your knees. It depends on who is in control of your life.
Mark Hart

It’s easier not to love. Beware of the easy path this day.
Mark Hart

Time is the most valuable commodity we have, worth more than gold, yet wasted more than all else. Efficient use of time begins with prayer.
Mark Hart

If today were your final day of this life, would those things causing you stress still do so?
Mark Hart

The amount of “followers” you have does not make you better than anyone else. Hitler had millions. Jesus had twelve.

How does a kid spell love? T – I – M – E.

Sacrifice is usually difficult and irksome. Only love can make it easy, and perfect love can make it a joy.
Rite of Christian Marriage, 1962 Rituale Romanum

Only an act of love can thaw a frozen heart.
Olaf, from the movie Frozen

The only person I can change is the one in the mirror.
Russell Wilson

Coolness, like fashion, is a slippery thing. As soon as you think you’ve caught up to it, you’re usually already a mile behind.

Love is not a sentiment or feeling. Love is actively willing the good of the other.
Father Robert Barron

Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.
Blessed John Henry Newman

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.
Blessed Mother Teresa

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Do what’s put in front of you each day and God will take care of the rest.
Sheila Liaugminas

What would you want someone to say about you at your funeral? Be that person today.
Father John Parks

Be a rebel; fight the devil!
Grace Juckniess

There are second chances in life but not at life.
Berit Kobienia

Do it today or later you’ll pay.
From Hermione’s homework planner in the Harry Potter series

Luck has the smell of perspiration.
Mark Schlereth

Virtue is like muscle: Use it or lose it.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Abraham Lincoln

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
Thorin Oakenshield, from The Hobbit

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.
C.S. Lewis

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.
Saint Augustine

It’s not that we have a short time to live but that we waste a lot of it.
Seneca

Age of body does not determine age of soul.
Saint Thomas Aquinas

It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.
Dumbledore, from the Harry Potter series

Long before anyone is shot by a gun, he is shot by a word, and before he is shot by a word, he is shot by a thought.
Father Ron Rolheiser

Real friends help their friends become saints.

Don’t live in the past – learn from the past.

If you pray well, you’ll live well; if you live well, you’ll die well; and if you die well, all will be well.

I’m not as bad as I could be. But I’m not as good as I should be, either.
Father Mike Schmitz

Don’t get so busy in life that you forget to live one.

Work is important, but so too is rest. Shouldn’t we learn to respect times of rest, especially Sundays?
Pope Francis

It is not always what you say that matters, but how you say it.

Don’t let yesterday use up most of today.

The most important things in life aren’t things.

If there are a hundred things on your plate make sure only one thing is on your heart: Love.
Chris Stefanick

“Inch by inch it’s a cinch.” Small changes consistently made will accomplish much more than most attempts at huge leaps.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

If you live for people’s acceptance, you’ll die from their rejection.
Lecrae

We should all talk like they do in Oscar acceptance speeches: Full of gratitude and realizing we don’t have much time.

I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.
Lily Tomlin

“I’ll die for you” is easy to say… “I’ll live for you” is hard to do.
Band: twenty one pilots

The Law of the Gift: The more you give yourself away the more you become yourself.