The false religion of lust is baser than the false religion of mother-love or patriotism or art: but lust is less likely to be made into a religion.

Which would you part with first -- your tobacco, your whiskey, or your religion?

Every person has two selves, a lower self that is born of flesh and tied to the illusions of the material world, and a higher self that is eternal and unborn, with no attachments at all. The lower self craves pleasure, the higher self knows only bliss. The lower self cringes from pain, the higher self has never felt pain. If that was true, then Gautama had to find his higher self or be lost in the endless quicksand of the mind's deceptions.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

When believers allow sin and compromise to be in their lives, it drains away the power in the work of the Cross and the power of the Spirit that is resident in a believer's life.

When we deny the spiritual dimension to our existence, we end up living like animals. And when we deny the physical, sexual dimension to our existence, we end up living like angels. And both ways are destructive, because God made us human.

In order to compete with sin's appeal, holy desire, the longing to live a Christlike life that displays the relational beauty of Christ to others, must be rooted in faith. And that faith exists only when it is lodged in the certainty that soon it will give way to an incomparable experience of joy that will forever destroy the appeal of sin.

It is with our passions, as it is with fire and water, they are good servants but bad masters.

If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.

No one should be surprised at the difficulty of faith, if there is some part of his life where he is consciously resisting or disobeying the commandment of Jesus. Is there some part of your life which you are refusing to surrender at his behest, some sinful passion, maybe, or some animosity, some hope, perhaps your ambition or your reason? ... How can you hope to enter into communion with him when at some point in your life you are running away from him?

Lay siege to your sins, and starve them out by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life.

it is extremely trying when one has once tasted pleasure to abstain from its enticements, so the reward of doing this is proportionately great.