I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.

— Elisabeth Elliot

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should enjoy things made for us to enjoy. What is not at all fitting or proper is that we should set our hearts on them. Temporal things must be treated as temporal things - received, given thanks for, offered back, but enjoyed. They must not be treated like eternal things.

— Elisabeth Elliot

It is a naive sort of feminism that insists that women prove their ability to do all the things that men do. This is a distortion and a travesty. Men have never sought to prove that they can do all the things women do. Why subject women to purely masculine criteria? Women can and ought to be judged by the criteria of femininity, for it is in their femininity that they participate in the human race. And femininity has its limitations. So has masculinity. That is what we’ve been talking about. To do this is not to do that. To be this is not to be that. To be a woman is not to be a man. To be married is not to be single - which may mean not to have a career. To marry this man is not to marry all the others. A choice is a limitation.

— Elisabeth Elliot

It is through the tender austerity of our troubles that the Son of Man comes knocking. In every event He seeks an entrance to my heart, yes, even in my most helpless, futile, fruitless moments. The very cracks and empty crannies of my life, my perplexities and hurts and botched-up jobs, He wants to fill with Himself, His joy, His life... He urges me to learn of Him: 'I am gentle and humble in heart.

— Elisabeth Elliot

I took it for granted that there must be a few men left in the world who had that kind of strength. I assumed that those men would also be looking for women with principle. Furthermore, I did not want to be among the marked-down goods on the bargain table, cheap because they’d been pawed over. Crowds collect there. It is only the few who will pay full price. "You get what you pay for.

— Elisabeth Elliot

It takes a while for revelry to turn to reverence, and much repetition of truth to eventual turn young zeal into habitual channels for good.

— Elisabeth Elliot

It would seem that unless we see through and beyond the physical, we shall not even see the physical as we ought to see it: as the very vehicle for the glory of God

— Elisabeth Elliot

Jesus never pussyfooted

— Elisabeth Elliot

Jim devoted ten days largely to prayer to make sure that this was indeed what God intended for him. He was given new assurance, and wrote to his parents of his intention to go to Ecuador. Understandably, they, with others who knew Jim well, wondered if perhaps his ministry might not be more effective in the United States, where so many know so little of the Bible's really message He replied: "I dare not stay home while Quiches perish. What if the well-filled church in the homeland needs stirring? They have the Scriptures Moses, and the prophets, and a lot more. Their condemnation is written on their bank books and in the dust on their Bible covers.

— Elisabeth Elliot

Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you

— Elisabeth Elliot