Quotes from JC Ryle

A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier's life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian.

We can never hear too much about Jesus Christ.

how true it is that the rulers of this world are seldom friendly to the cause of God.

Pride is the oldest and commonest of sins. Humility is the rarest and most beautiful of graces.

Prayer and temptation, the Bible and meditation, make a true minister of the gospel.

Pride sits in all our hearts by nature. We are born proud. Pride makes us rest satisfied with ourselves, thinking we are good enough as we are. It closes our ears against all advice, refuses the gospel of Christ and turns every one to his own way.

Evening is the time which the higher classes choose for dancing, card playing, and the like; and consequently never get to bed till late at night. If we love our souls, and would not become worldly, let us mind how we spend our evenings. Tell me how a man spends his evenings, and I can generally tell what his character is.

Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank and class and name and nation and people and tongue, a disease from which there never was but one born of woman that was free. Need I say that One was Christ Jesus the Lord?

For my part I am persuaded the more light we have, the more we see our own sinfulness: the nearer we get to heaven, the more we are clothed with humility.

Sanctifying faith is a grace of which the very life is action: it "worketh by love," and, like a main-spring, moves the whole inward man. (Gal. v. 6.)

Never be ashamed of letting men see that you want to go to heaven. Do not think it a disgrace to show that you are a servant of God. Never be afraid of doing what is right.

A deep sense of sin, a humble willingness to be saved in God's way, a teachable readiness to give up our own prejudices when a more excellent way is shown, these are the principal things. These things the two disciples possessed, and therefore our Lord "went with them" and guided them into all truth.