J.C. Ryle Quotes

What is the cause of most backslidings? I believe, as a general rule, one of the chief causes is neglect of private prayer.

What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? The Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.

Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct.

The love of the Bible will show itself in a believer's actions.

If you and sin are friends, you and God are not yet reconciled.

The Lord Jesus is "a friend who never changes." There is no fickleness about Him: those whom He loves, He loves to the end.

If you profess to be a child of God, leave it to the Lord Jesus to sanctify you in His own way.

The true Christian does not need to be reminded that he has a crucified Master. He often thinks of Him.

The true Christian delights to hear something about his Master. He likes those sermons best which are full of Christ.

People may refuse to see the truth of our arguments, but they cannot evade the evidence of a holy life.

Happiness does not depend on outward circumstances, but on the state of the heart.

Obedience is the only reality. It is faith visible, faith acting, and faith manifest. It is the test of real discipleship among the Lord's people.

I declare I know no state of soul more dangerous than to imagine we are born again and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, because we have picked up a few religious feelings.

A saved soul has many sorrows. They have their share of bereavements, deaths, disappointments , crosses. What shall enable a believer to bear all this? Nothing but the consolation there is in Christ.

Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church. They train people for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations.

Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer.

Let us watch against PRIDE in every shapepride of intellect, pride of wealth, pride in our own goodness.

No doubt men may easily think too little of God the Father, and God the Spirit, but no man ever thought too much of Christ.

Absolute solitude is on this showing the ineluctable destiny of the soul. Only our bodies can meet.

Next to praying there is nothing so important in practical religion as Bible-reading.

I am one of those old-fashioned ministers who believe the whole Bible and everything that it contains.

There is something sadly wrong when it is more important to us whether others are a part of our denomination, rather than whether they repent of sin, believe on Christ and live holy lives.

Miserable indeed is that religious teaching which calls itself Christian, and yet contains nothing of the cross.

We can never make too much of Christ. He is worthy of all the honor that we can give Him.

Without a thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world.

Do we profess to love Christ? Then let us show it by our lives.

Why is a believer patient? Because he looks for the coming of the Lord...He waits quietly for the King.

Millions of people profess and call themselves Christians, whom the Apostle Paul would not have called Christians at all.

The surest mark of true conversion is humility.

We never know who they are that God will draw, and have nothing to do with it. Our duty is to invite all, and leave it to God to choose the vessels of mercy.

It is not always those who have the most eminent gifts who are the most successful laborers for God. It is generally those who keep up closest communion with Christ and are most constant in prayer.

Conduct is the grand test of character. Words are one great evidence of the condition of the heart.

The heart that has really tasted the grace of Christ, will instinctively hate sin.

Imagination is the hotbed where this sin is too often hatched. Guard your thoughts, and there will be little fear about your actions.

How can we love sin, when we remember that because of our sins Jesus died?

Jesus hears us, and in His own good time will give an answer... He may sometimes keep us long waiting...but He will never send us empty away.

The true secret of spiritual strength is self-distrust and deep humilty.

Let us daily strive to copy our Savior's humility.

Health is a good thing; but sickness is far better, if it leads us to God.

Myths often do a lot of theoretical good, while they are still new.

People fall in private, long before they fall in public. The tree falls with a great crash, but the secret decay which accounts for it, is often not discovered until it is down on the ground.

Never be satisfied with the world's standard of Christianity!

Let us never forget that our chief danger is from within. The world and the devil combined, cannot do us as much harm as our own hearts will, if we do not watch and pray.

One single soul saved shall outlive and outweigh all the kingdoms of the world.

That preaching is sadly defective which dwells exclusively on the mercies of God and the joys of heaven, yet never sets forth the terrors of the Lord and the miseries of hell.

The parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand, and pulling down with the other.

It was the whole Trinity, which at the beginning of creation said, "Let us make man". It was the whole Trinity again, which at the beginning of the Gospel seemed to say, "Let us save man".

Meekness is one of the brightest graces which can adorn the Christian character.

Let it be a settled principle ...that men's salvation, if saved, is wholly of God; and that man's ruin, if lost, is wholly of himself.

The work of the preacher resembles that of the sower. Like the sower, the preacher must sow good seed, the Word of God.