J. C. Ryle

"Where no visible fruit can be found, there you may be sure is no conversion."

"The ancient Christians made it a part of their religion to look for His return. Backward they looked to the cross and the atonement for sin, and rejoiced in Christ crucified. Upward they looked to Christ at the right hand of God, and rejoiced in Christ interceding. Forward they looked to the promised return of their Master, and rejoiced in the thought that they would see Him again. And we ought to do the same."

"There are some things of which we never know the value of till they are taken from us."

"Before Christ comes, it is useless to expect to see a perfect Church."

"All the simplicity in the world can do no good, unless you preach the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ so fully and clearly that everybody can understand it. If Christ crucified has not His rightful place in your sermons, and sin is not exposed as it should be, and your people are not plainly told what they ought to believe, and be, and do, your preaching is of no use."

"Fear puts an end to openness of manner; fear leads to concealment; fear sows the seed of much hypocrisy, and leads to many a lie."

"[T]he parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand and pulling down with the other."

"Tomorrow is the devil's day, but today is God's. Satan cares not how spiritual your intentions may be, and how holy your resolutions, if only they are fixed for tomorrow."

"Hell itself is truth known too late."

"Value all books in proportion as they are agreeable to Scripture. Those that are nearest to it are the best, and those that are farthest from it, and most contrary to it, are the worst."

"Examine your own hearts. Do you see there any habit or custom which you know is wrong in the sight of God? If you do, don't delay for a moment in attacking it. Resolve at once to lay it aside. Nothing darkens the eyes of the mind so much, and deadens the conscience so surely, as an allowed sin. It may be a little one, but it is not any less dangerous."

"With all the stir made about education, the ignorance of our own country's history is something lamentable and appalling and depressing."

"It has often been observed that the mothers of great men, and especially of great divines, have been remarkable for strong mind and force of intellect. Mothers have been found, as a general rule, to influence children's character far more than fathers."

"The end to which good men's libraries finally come is a melancholy subject. Few things are so much loved by some, and despised and neglected by others, as books, and specially theological books."

"The more I study the productions of the new schools of theological teachers, the more I marvel that men and women can be satisfied with such writing. There is a vagueness, a mistiness, a shallowness, an indistinctness, a superficiality, an aimlessness, a hollowness about the literature of the Catholic or broader systems, as they are called, which, to my mind, stamps their origin on their face. They are of the earth, earthy."