Quotes from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. Its easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence – easier sometimes than to wait patiently.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily "ours" but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinguish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“We are not meant to die merely in order to be dead. God could not want that for the creatures to whom He has given the breath of life. We die in order to live.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“But the question to precede all others, which finally determines the course of our lives is What do I really want? Was it to love what God commands, in the words of the collect, and to desire what He promises? Did I want what I wanted, or did I want what He wanted, no matter what it might cost?”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“I took it for granted that there must be a few men left in the world who had that kind of strength. I assumed that those men would also be looking for women with principle. I did not want to be among the marked-down goods on the bargain table, cheap because they’d been pawed over. Crowds collect there. It is only the few who will pay full price. "You get what you pay for.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“I am convinced that the human heart hungers for constancy. In forfeiting the sanctity of sex by casual, nondiscriminatory "making out" and "sleeping around," we forfeit something we cannot well do without. There is dullness, monotony, sheer boredom in all of life when virginity and purity are no longer protected and prized.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all. I was dying to talk to Jim and about Jim. But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“When ours are interrupted, his are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable).”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Unless a man is prepared to ask a woman to be his wife, what right has he to claim her exclusive attention? Unless she has been asked to marry him, why would a sensible woman promise any man her exclusive attention? If, when the time has come for a commitment, he is not man enough to ask her to marry him, she should give him no reason to presume that she belongs to him.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Of all things difficult to rule, none were more so than my will and affections.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Women still dream and hope, pin their emotions on some man who doesn't reciprocate, and end up in confusion.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Until the will and the affections are brought under the authority of Christ, we have not begun to understand, let alone accept, His Lordship. The Cross, as it enters the love life, will reveal the heart’s truth.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“If God gave it to me," we say "it's mine. I can do what I want with it." No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of - if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“We are always held in the love of God. We are never wholly at the mercy of other people - they are only “second causes,” and no matter how many second or third or fiftieth causes seem to be in control of what happens to us, it is God who is in charge, He who holds the keys, He who casts the lot finally into the lap. Trusting Him, then, requires that I leave some things to be decided by others. I must learn to relinquish the control I might wield over somebody else if the decision properly belongs to him. I must resist my urge to manipulate him, needle and prod and pester until he capitulates. I must trust God in him, trust God to do for both of us better than I know.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“What do women want today? What do men want? I mean, deep down. What do they really want? If ‘times’ have changed, have human longings changed, too? How about principles? Have Christian principles changed? I say no to the last three questions, an emphatic no. I am convinced that the human heart hungers for constancy. In forfeiting the sanctity of sex by casual, nondiscriminatory ‘making out’ and ‘sleeping around,’ we forfeit something we cannot well do without. There is dullness, monotony, sheer boredom in all of life when virginity and purity are no longer protected and prized. By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Steadfastness, that is holding on;
Patience, that is holding back;
Expectancy, that is holding the face up;
Obedience, that is holding one's self in readiness to go or do;
Listening, that is holding quiet and still as to hear.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“How long Lord must I wait?
Nevermind child, trust me.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“But little deaths have to be died just as great ones do. Every reminder that aroused a longing had to be offered up.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“When the will of God crosses the will of man, somebody has to die.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“If the yearning went away, what would we have to offer up to the Lord? Aren't they given to us to offer? It is the control of passion, not it's eradication, that is needed.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“I wonder if she allowed the man to see her eagerness and scared him? Possibly her failure to wait quietly caused him to "curtail the friendship".”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“If He is God, He is still in charge.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Matters of the heart still can never put us beyond His love and redemption.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“If he had loved her he would have pursued her.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“Wait. Wait on God. Keep your mouth shut. Don't expect anything until the declaration is clear and forthright...resist the temptation to trifle with other people's feelings.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“A woman ought to be honest with a man who shows interest in her.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, quote from Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

About the author

Popular quotes

“He smiled back and put his lips against mine, mouthing, “I love you, too,” against my mouth, as if he was breathing love into my body.”
― Mia Sheridan, quote from Archer's Voice

“Do you like dogs?'
'No.'
'I thought the British were great dog-lovers.'
'We think Americans love dollars, but there must be exceptions.”
― Graham Greene, quote from The Quiet American

“He saw that to be firm soldiers they must go forward.”
― Stephen Crane, quote from The Red Badge of Courage

“Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.”
― Jacqueline Carey, quote from Kushiel's Dart

“You really saw some?" Liz said an hour later. Sure, we had the stereo blaring and the shower running, but Liz still whispered, "They really...exist?"
"Liz," I whispered back, "they're not unicorns."
"No," Bex said flatly, "they're boys. And they're...good.”
― Ally Carter, quote from Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.