Charles Spurgeon Quotations

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will are too often exalted as the gods of man's idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought.

True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise nor a vocal performance. It is far deeper than that - it is spiritual transaction with the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.

Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.

If I were a Roman Catholic, I should turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory.

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel.

Said will be a little ahead, but done should follow at his heel.

Cast away your sloth, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your chaste and pure love for Christ, your soul's husband. Make Him the source, the center, and the circumference of all your soul's range of delight.

Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God's grace.

However great may be the work for which we are responsible, we will always do well if we pause to spend time in sacred praise.

A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend's griefs, but if he sees him honored and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not so readily rejoice with him. This ought not to be; without effort, we ought to be happy in our brother's happiness.

A dark cloud is no sign that the sun has lost his light; and dark black convictions are no arguments that God has laid aside His mercy.

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.

We have come to a turning point in the road. If we turn to the right mayhap our children and our children's children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.

None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

Now I will say this to every sinner, though he should think himself to be the worst sinner who ever lived: cry to the Lord and seek Him while He may be found. A throne of grace is a place fitted for you. By simple faith, go to your Savior, for He is the throne of grace.

How sweet it is to learn the Savior's love when nobody else loves us! When friends flee, what a blessed thing it is to see that the Savior does not forsake us but still keeps us and holds us fast and clings to us and will not let us go!

The astronomer will believe that the most erratic comet will yet accomplish its journey and revisit our sphere; but we give up those for lost who have not wandered one-half the distance from the centre of light and life.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

Has Jesus saved me? I dare not speak with any hesitation here; I know He has. His Word is true; therefore, I am saved.

A daily portion is really all we need. We do not need tomorrow's supply, for that day has not yet dawned, and its needs are still unborn.

'You are no saint,' says the devil. Well, if I am not, I am a sinner, and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Sink or swim, I go to Him; other hope, I have none.

If Christ has died for me, ungodly as I am, without strength as I am, then I cannot live in sin any longer, but must arouse myself to love and serve Him who has redeemed me.

The revealed Word awakened me, but it was the preached Word that saved me, and I must ever attach peculiar value to the hearing of the truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my soul delights.

I think that is a better thing than thanksgiving: thanks-living. How is this to be done? By a general cheerfulness of manner, by an obedience to the command of Him by whose mercy we live, by a perpetual, constant delighting of ourselves in the Lord, and by a submission of our desires to His will.

We object not to the narration of the deeds of our unregenerate condition, but to the mode in which it is too often done. Let sin have its monument, but let it be a heap of stones cast by the hands of execration - not a mausoleum erected by the hands of affection.

We do not pray to God to instruct Him as to what He should do; neither for a moment must we presume to dictate the method of the divine working.

Do you not realize that the love the Father bestowed on the perfect Christ He now bestows on you?

The wounds of calumny, the reproaches of the proud, the venom of the bigoted, the treachery of the false, and the weakness of the true, we have known in our measure; and therein have had communion with our Lord Jesus.

If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith.

A sinner can no more repent and believe without the Holy Spirit's aid than he can create a world.

Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.

Men know not the gold which lies in the mine of Christ Jesus, or surely they would dig in it night and day. They have not yet discovered the pearl of great price, or they would have sold their all to buy the field wherein it lies.

Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.

You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you expect.

You cannot make a sinner into a saint by killing him. He who does not live as a saint here will never live as a saint hereafter.

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.

The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.

We do not wish to enter Heaven until our work is done, for it would make us uneasy if there were one single soul left to be saved by our means.

He who has felt his own ruin will not imagine the case of any to be hopeless; nor will he think them too fallen to be worthy his regard.

If any of you should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion, I should say that it is in one word - prayer. Live and die without prayer, and you will pray long enough when you get to hell.

I do not think I should care to go on worshipping a Madonna even if she did wink. One cannot make much out of a wink. We want something more than that from the object of our adoration.

Let not a libation of tears be the only offering at the shrine of Jesus; let us also rejoice with joy unspeakable. If we have need to lament our sin, how much more to rejoice at our pardon!

Living animals are too eccentric in their movements, and the law of gravitation usually draws me from my seat upon them to a lower level; therefore, I am not an inveterate lover of horseback.

I glory in the distinguishing grace of God and will not, by the grace of God, step one inch from my principles or think of adhering to the present fashionable sort of religion.

I believe that nothing happens apart from divine determination and decree. We shall never be able to escape from the doctrine of divine predestination - the doctrine that God has foreordained certain people unto eternal life.

There is such a thing as 'thanks-feeling' - feeling thankful. This ought to be the general, universal spirit of the Christian.

As a child, when asked what I would be, I usually said I was going to be a huntsman. A fine profession, truly!

We are in a wrong state of mind if we are not in a thankful state of mind.

Lord Jesus, we come just as we are; this is how we came at first, and this is how we come still, with all our failures, with all our transgressions, with all and everything that is what it ought not to be, we come to Thee.

Purposes, plans, and achievements of men may all disappear like yon cloud upon the mountain's summit; but, like the mountain itself, the things which are of God shall stand fast for ever and ever.

My evidence that I am saved does not lie in the fact that I preach, or that I do this or that. All my hope lies in this: that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. I am a sinner, I trust Him, then He came to save me, and I am saved.

There are many men who are forgotten, who are despised, and who are trampled on by their fellows, but there never was a man who was so despised as the everlasting God has been!

Oh, come, Divine Physician, and bind up every broken bone. Come with Thy sacred nard which Thou hast compounded of Thine own heart's blood, and lay it home to the wounded conscience and let it feel its power. Oh! Give peace to those whose conscience is like the troubled sea which cannot rest.

It is a most delightful reflection that if I come to the throne of God in prayer, I may feel a thousand defects, but yet there is hope. I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than with anything else I do.

Do I live as carelessly and worldly as unbelievers while professing to be a follower of Jesus? If so, I am exposing Christianity to ridicule and leading people to speak evil of the holy name by which I am called.

Lord keep us all from sin. Teach us how to walk circumspectly; enable us to guard our minds against error of doctrine, our hearts against wrong feelings, and our lives against evil actions.

No one knows who is listening, say nothing you would not wish put in the newspapers.

In the same way the sun never grows weary of shining, nor a stream of flowing, it is God's nature to keep His promises. Therefore, go immediately to His throne and say, 'Do as You promised.'

O, Thou precious Lord Jesus Christ, we do adore Thee with all our hearts. Thou art Lord of all.

Young men, trust God, and make the future bright with blessing. Old men, trust God, and magnify him for all the mercies of the past.

Lord sanctify us. Oh! That Thy spirit might come and saturate every faculty, subdue every passion, and use every power of our nature for obedience to God.

Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self.

There is a power in God's gospel beyond all description.

Nothing reflects so much honor on a workman as a trial of his work and its endurance of it. So it is with God. It honors Him when His saints preserve their integrity.

What an encouraging thought that Jesus - our beloved Husband - can find comfort in our lowly feeble gifts! Can this be, for it seems far too good to be true? May we then be willing to endure trials or even death itself if through these hardships we are assisted in bringing gladness to Immanuel's heart.

When we tell the story of our own conversion, I would have it done with great sorrow, remembering what we used to be, and with great joy and gratitude, remembering how little we deserve these things.

We cannot have communion with Christ till we are in union with Him; and we cannot have communion with the Church till we are in vital union with it.

Conversion is a change of masters. Will we not do as much for our new master, the Lord Jesus, as we did once for our old tyrant lusts?

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush.

Oh, hour of forgiven sin, moment of perfect pardon, our soul shall never forget you while, within you, life and being find immortality!

However weak we are, however poor, however little our faith, or however small our grace may be, our names are still written on His heart; nor shall we lose our share in Jesus' love.

Grow in the root of all grace, which is faith. Believe God's promises more firmly than ever. Allow your faith to increase in its fullness, firmness, and simplicity.

Think not that humility is weakness; it shall supply the marrow of strength to thy bones. Stoop and conquer; bow thyself and become invincible.

In spiritual things, it is God who performs all things for you. Rest in Him, then.

The roaring thunder of the law and the fear of the terror of judgment are both used to bring us to Christ, but the final victory culminating in our salvation is won through God's loving-kindness.

There is no injustice in the grace of God. God is as just when He forgives a believer as when He casts a sinner into hell.

Alas! You complain that your soul is out of tune. Then ask the Master to tune the heart-strings.

Fill the earth with your songs of gratitude.

Let it be our delight to find our society in the circle of which Jesus is the center, and let us make those our friends who are the friends of Jesus.

May we have communion with God in the secret of our hearts, and find Him to be to us as a little sanctuary.

In prayer, we stand where angels bow with veiled faces. There, even there, the cherubim and seraphim adore before that selfsame throne to which our prayers ascend. And shall we come there with stunted requests and narrow, contracted faith?

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

Think of what you are, you Christians. You are God's children; you are joint heirs with Christ. The 'many mansions' are for you; the palms and harps of the glorified are for you. You have a share in all that Christ has and is and shall be.

No one is so miserable as the poor person who maintains the appearance of wealth.

The goose that lays the golden eggs likes to lay where there are eggs already.

A vigorous temper is not altogether an evil. Men who are easy as an old shoe are generally of little worth.

It is not well to make great changes in old age.

I do think that a minister who can preach a sermon without addressing sinners does not know how to preach.

O God, we praise Thee for keeping us till this day, and for the full assurance that Thou wilt never let us go.

You will never exaggerate when you speak good things of God. It is not possible to do so. Try, dear brethren, and boast in the Lord.

All our actions, as well as our thoughts and words, should praise Him who always blesses us.