"Be gentle to all and stern with yourself"
About this Quote
A line like this is an austerity in miniature: a spiritual discipline disguised as good manners. Teresa of Avila wasn’t dispensing vague kindness; she was building a workable interior rule for people trying to live intensely, together, inside the pressure-cooker of 16th-century Catholic reform. The Carmel she helped remake depended on community life, obedience, and relentless prayer. Friction wasn’t an abstraction. One sharp word could fracture a convent; one unexamined impulse could derail a vocation.
“Be gentle to all” is less sentimental than tactical. Teresa understood how power hides in piety: the temptation to correct others, to win holiness by policing the room. Gentleness becomes a safeguard against spiritual vanity and the cruelty that often rides in on “zeal.” It’s also a social technology, keeping the communal fabric intact so the real work - contemplation - can happen.
“And stern with yourself” delivers the counterweight. The sternness is not self-loathing but accountability, a refusal to outsource the hard parts of transformation. Teresa’s mysticism is famously vivid, yet she’s suspicious of theatrical holiness. Sternness pulls the focus inward: examine your motives, your distractions, your desire to be seen as devout. The subtext is bracing: if you must be harsh, spend it on your own ego.
The line works because it reverses our default allocation of severity. We’re often strict with others and indulgent with ourselves. Teresa flips the script and calls it sanctity.
“Be gentle to all” is less sentimental than tactical. Teresa understood how power hides in piety: the temptation to correct others, to win holiness by policing the room. Gentleness becomes a safeguard against spiritual vanity and the cruelty that often rides in on “zeal.” It’s also a social technology, keeping the communal fabric intact so the real work - contemplation - can happen.
“And stern with yourself” delivers the counterweight. The sternness is not self-loathing but accountability, a refusal to outsource the hard parts of transformation. Teresa’s mysticism is famously vivid, yet she’s suspicious of theatrical holiness. Sternness pulls the focus inward: examine your motives, your distractions, your desire to be seen as devout. The subtext is bracing: if you must be harsh, spend it on your own ego.
The line works because it reverses our default allocation of severity. We’re often strict with others and indulgent with ourselves. Teresa flips the script and calls it sanctity.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Discipline |
|---|
More Quotes by Saint
Add to List
