0 true and heavenly grace, without which our own merits are nothing, and our natural gifts of no account! Neither arts nor riches, beauty nor strength, genius nor eloquence have any value in Your eyes, Lord, unless allied to grace. For the gifts of nature are common to good men and bad alike, but grace or love are Your especial gift to those whom You choose, and those who are sealed with this are counted worthy of life everlasting.

— Thomas à Kempis

A book has but one voice, but it does not instruct everyone alike.

— Thomas à Kempis

All men desire peace, but very few desire those things that make for peace.

— Thomas à Kempis

A man who truly knows himself realizes his own worthlessness, and takes no pleasure in the praises of men.

— Thomas à Kempis

A sure way of retaining the grace of heaven is to disregard outward appearances, and diligently to cultivate such things as foster amendment of life and fervor of soul, rather than to cultivate those qualities that seem most popular.

— Thomas à Kempis

At the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done.

— Thomas à Kempis

A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.

— Thomas à Kempis

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

— Thomas à Kempis

Do not let your peace depend on the words of men. Their thinking well or badly of you does not make you different from what you are. Where are true peace and glory? Are they not in Me? He who neither cares to please men nor fears to displease them will enjoy great peace, for all unrest and distraction of the senses arise out of disorderly love and vain fear.

— Thomas à Kempis

God hath thus ordered it, that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for no man is without fault, no man without his burden, no man sufficient of himself, no man wise enough of himself; but we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another.

— Thomas à Kempis