J.C. Ryle Quotes

#1. No man can die unless Jesus opens the mystic door of death.

J.C. Ryle

#2. The love of our Lord Jesus Christ towards sinners is strikingly shown in His steady purpose of heart to die for them.

J.C. Ryle

#3. A man's state before God may always be measured by his prayers.

J.C. Ryle

#4. There must not only be good preaching, but good hearing.

J.C. Ryle

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

J.C. Ryle

#6. Am I honest? Am I sincere? Do I really desire first the praise of God?

J.C. Ryle

#7. Never let us be guilty of sacrificing any portion of truth on the altar of peace.

J.C. Ryle

#8. The true cure for self-righteousness is self-knowledge.

J.C. Ryle

#9. A man may just as soon read the Scripture without eyes, as understand the spirit of it without grace.

J.C. Ryle

#10. Ignorance of Scripture is the root of every error in religion, and the source of ever heresy. To be allowed to remove a few grains of ignorance, and to throw a few rays of light on God's precious word, is, in my opinion, the greatest honor that can be put on a Christian.

J.C. Ryle

#11. Let your Christianity be so unmistakable, your eye so single, your heart so whole, your walk so straightforward, that all who see you may have no doubt whose you are, and whom you serve.

J.C. Ryle

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

J.C. Ryle

#13. Children are very quick observers; very quick in seeing through some kinds of hypocrisy, very quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all your ways and opinions. You will often discover that, as the father is, so is the son.

J.C. Ryle

#14. Since Satan can't destroy the gospel, he has too often neutralized its usefulness by addition, subtraction or substitution.

J.C. Ryle

#15. Nothing so hardens the heart of man as a barren familiarity with sacred things.

J.C. Ryle

#16. Look to the cross, think of the cross, meditate on the cross, and then go and set your affections on the world if you can.

J.C. Ryle

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

J.C. Ryle

#18. The rulers of the earth plan, and scheme, and make laws, and change laws, and war, and pull down one, and raise up another. But they little think that they rule only by the will of Jesus, and that nothing happens without the permission of the Lamb of God.

J.C. Ryle

#19. The cause of Christ does not need less working, but it does need among the workers, more praying.

J.C. Ryle

#20. Let us read the Bible reverently and diligently, with an honest determination to believe and practice all we find in it.

J.C. Ryle

#21. The very sermon that we needlessly miss, may contain a precious word in season for our souls.

J.C. Ryle

#22. Without holiness on earth we shall never be prepared to enjoy heaven. Heaven is a holy place. The Lord of heaven is a holy Being. The angels are holy creatures. Holiness is written on everything in heaven ... How shall we ever be at home and happy in heaven if we die unholy?

J.C. Ryle

#23. Prosperity is a great mercy, but adversity is a greater one, if it brings us to Christ.

J.C. Ryle

#24. There is no fickleness about Jesus: those whom He loves, He loves to the end.

J.C. Ryle

#25. Let us awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians. 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord'; without sanctification there is no salvation (Hebrews 12:14). Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless!

J.C. Ryle

#26. The fear of punishment, the desire of reward, the sense of duty, are all useful arguments, in their way, to persuade people to holiness. But they are all weak and powerless, until a person loves Christ.

J.C. Ryle

#27. A Christian is nothing more than a sinner who has found out their sinfulness, and has learned the blessed secret of living by faith in Christ.

J.C. Ryle

#28. The Gospel was not meant merely to reside in our intellect, memories, and tongues, but to be seen in our lives.

J.C. Ryle

#29. Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.

J.C. Ryle

#30. The Christian who keeps their heart diligently in little things shall be kept from great falls.

J.C. Ryle

#31. Let us urge on every one who exhibits new interest in religion to be content with nothing short of the deep, solid, sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost.

J.C. Ryle

#32. If you train your children to anything, train them, at least, to a habit of prayer.

J.C. Ryle

#33. If you want to warm a church, put a stove in the pulpit.

J.C. Ryle

#34. The nearer we live to God while we live, the more ready we will be to dwell forever in His presence when we die.

J.C. Ryle

#35. Who shall dare to talk of strength when David can fall?

J.C. Ryle

#36. Of all the doctrines of the Bible none is so offensive to human nature as the doctrine of God's sovereignty.

J.C. Ryle

#37. The world's idea of greatness is to rule, but Christian greatness consists in serving.

J.C. Ryle

#38. Two-thirds of all the strifes, quarrels, and lawsuits in the world arise from one simple cause-money.

J.C. Ryle

#39. The immense importance of "adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour" (Titus ii. 10), and making it lovely and beautiful by our daily habits and tempers, has been far too much overlooked.

J.C. Ryle

#40. Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you.

J.C. Ryle

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

J.C. Ryle

#42. Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God's judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word.

J.C. Ryle

#43. Take away the cross of Christ, and the Bible is a dark book.

J.C. Ryle

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

J.C. Ryle

#45. No one ever said at the end of his days; 'I have read my bible too much, I have thought of God too much, I have prayed too much, I have been too careful with my soul'

J.C. Ryle

#46. Prayer needs neither learning, wisdom or book knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing but heart and will.

J.C. Ryle

#47. 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.

J.C. Ryle

#48. Believe me, you cannot stand still in your souls. Habits of good or evil are daily strengthening in your hearts. Every day you are either getting nearer to God, or further off.

J.C. Ryle

#49. We have the truth and we need not be afraid to say so.

J.C. Ryle

#50. The temple in which the Lord Jesus delights most, is a broken and contrite heart, renewed by the Holy Spirit.

J.C. Ryle

#51. The brightest saint is the man who has the most heart-searching sense of his own sinfulness, and the liveliest sense of his own complete acceptance in Christ.

J.C. Ryle

#52. The true Christian delights to hear something about their Master. They like those sermons best which are full of Christ.

J.C. Ryle

#53. In justification the word to be addressed to man is believe - only believe; in sanctification the word must be 'watch, pray, and fight.'

J.C. Ryle

#54. A crucified Savior will never be content to have a self-pleasing, self-indulging, worldly-minded people.

J.C. Ryle

#55. My chief desire in all my writings, is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and make Him beautiful and glorious in the eyes of people; and to promote the increase of repentance, faith, and holiness upon earth.

J.C. Ryle

#56. We live in a day of abounding vagueness and indistinctness on doctrinal subjects in religion. Now, if ever, it is the duty of all advocates of clear, well-defined, sharply-cut theology, to supply proof that their views are thoroughly borne out by Scripture.

J.C. Ryle

#57. A zealous Savior ought to have zealous disciples.

J.C. Ryle

#58. Peace, and not riches, had been the great legacy which He had left with the eleven the night before His crucifixion.

J.C. Ryle

#59. True repentance begins with KNOWLEDGE of sin. It goes on to work SORROW for sin. It leads to CONFESSION of sin before God. It shows itself before a person by a thorough BREAKING OFF from sin. It results in producing a DEEP HATRED for all sin.

J.C. Ryle

#60. It is neglect of the Bible which makes so many a prey to the first false teacher whom they hear.

J.C. Ryle

#61. Many, I fear, would like glory, who have no wish for grace. They would [want to] have the wages, but not the work; the harvest, but not the labor; the reaping, but not the sowing; the reward, but not the battle. But it may not be.

J.C. Ryle

#62. A converted man will not wish to go to heaven alone

J.C. Ryle

#63. We ought to regard the sacrament of baptism with reverence. An ordinance of which the Lord Jesus Himself partook, is not to be lightly esteemed. An ordinance to which the great Head of the Church submitted, ought to be ever honorable in the eyes of professing Christians.

J.C. Ryle

#64. Let us daily strive to copy our Saviour's humility.

J.C. Ryle

#65. Laughter, ridicule, opposition and persecution are often the only reward which Christ's followers get from the world.

J.C. Ryle

#66. God is far more willing to save sinners than sinners are to be saved.

J.C. Ryle

#67. If you want to find out how much someone loves you, find out how much they pray for you.

J.C. Ryle

#68. The best of men are only men at their very best. Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, - martyrs, fathers, reformers, puritans, - all are sinners, who need a Savior: holy, useful, honorable in their place - but sinners after all.

J.C. Ryle

#69. We are all so sunk in sin, and so wedded to the world, that we would never turn to God and seek salvation, unless He first called us by His grace. Without a divine call, no one can be saved.

J.C. Ryle

#70. If I never spoke of hell, I should think I had kept back something that was profitable, and should look on myself as an accomplice of the devil.

J.C. Ryle

#71. Any well-read man knows that the moral difference between the condition of the world before Christianity was planted and since Christianity took root is the difference between night and day, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the devil.

J.C. Ryle

#72. He that would be safe from the acts of evil, must widely avoid the occasions.

J.C. Ryle

#73. Let us seek friends that will stir up our prayers, our Bible reading, our use of time, and our salvation.

J.C. Ryle

#74. 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.

J.C. Ryle

#75. It is a true saying of good Archbishop Leighton: 'The way of sin is down hill; a man cannot stop when he would.

J.C. Ryle

#76. Just in proportion as we realize how much Christ has done for us, shall we labour to do much for Christ.

J.C. Ryle

#77. The true Christian does not need to be reminded that they have a crucified Master. They OFTEN think of Him.

J.C. Ryle

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

J.C. Ryle

#79. The effects of preaching are a miracle." A good preacher converts persons; he casts out devils from the hearts of those whom he changes from sin to holiness. This he could not do without power from God. But what seems good, is often not good.

J.C. Ryle

#80. However corrupt our hearts, and however wicked our past lives, there is hope for us in the Gospel.

J.C. Ryle

#81. The man who has nothing more than a kind of Sunday religion
whose Christianity is like his Sunday clothes put on once a week, and then laid aside
such a man cannot, of course, be expected to care about growth in grace.

J.C. Ryle

#82. Weak, feeble and foolish as it may seem to people, the simple story of the Cross is enough for all mankind in every part of the globe.

J.C. Ryle

#83. We are all naturally self-righteous. It is the family disease of all the children of Adam.

J.C. Ryle

#84. Guard your thoughts, and there will be little fear about your actions.

J.C. Ryle

#85. To be Christian it will cost a man his love of ease.

J.C. Ryle

#86. The children of God all have a cross to bear. A suffering Savior generally has suffering disciples.

J.C. Ryle

#87. I entreat my readers, besides the Bible and the Articles, to read history.

J.C. Ryle

#88. I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper in business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to attain much holiness who was not diligent about his Bible reading, his prayers, and the use of his Sundays.

J.C. Ryle

#89. According to the men of the world, few are going to hell; According to the Bible, few are going to heaven.

J.C. Ryle

#90. A right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity.

J.C. Ryle

#91. Let it never surprise true Christians if they are slandered and misrepresented in this world. They must not expect to fare better than their Lord.

J.C. Ryle

#92. Never does a person see any beauty in Christ as a Savior, until they discover that they are a lost and ruined sinner.

J.C. Ryle

#93. 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.

J.C. Ryle

#94. Go to the cross of Christ, all you that want to be delivered from the power of selfishness.

J.C. Ryle

#95. The best of men are men at best

J.C. Ryle

#96. The blood of Christ can cleanse away all sin. But we must 'plead guilty' before God can declare us innocent.

J.C. Ryle

#97. The Christianity that saves is a thing personally grasped, personally experienced, personally felt and personally possessed.

J.C. Ryle

#98. It is not hard to deceive ministers, relatives and friends. But it is impossible to deceive Christ.

J.C. Ryle

#99. The heart of a man can never be satisfied with the things of this world. It is always empty, and hungry, and thirsty, and dissatisfied, till it comes to Christ. It is only they who hear Christ's voice, and follow Him, and feed on Him by faith, who are 'filled.'.

J.C. Ryle

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

J.C. Ryle