Thomas Chalmers > Quotes

“A man's needs are few. The simpler the life, therefore, the better. Indeed, only three things are truly necessary in order to make life happy: the blessing of God, the benefit of books, and the benevolence of friends.”
― Thomas Chalmers

“With the magnificence of eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, dwindle into its own littleness.”
― Thomas Chalmers

“Salvation by grace—salvation by free grace—salvation not of works, but according to the mercy of God—salvation on such a footing is not more indispensable to the deliverance of our persons from the hand of justice, than it is to the deliverance of our hearts from the chill and the weight of ungodliness. Retain a single shred or fragment of legality with the Gospel, and we raise a topic of distrust between man and God.”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

“The love of the world cannot be expunged by a mere demonstration of the world’s worthlessness. But may it not be supplanted by the love of that which is more worthy than itself?”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

“It has been said that there is nothing more uncommon than common sense.”
― Thomas Chalmers

“May I feel the salutary lesson of indifference to the praise of men, and may all my anxiety be directed to the praise of God and the interests of eternity.”
― Thomas Chalmers

“The object of the gospel is both to pacify the sinner’s conscience and to purify his heart; and it is of importance to observe that what mars the one of these objects mars the other also. The best way of casting out an impure affection is to admit a pure one, and, by the love of what is good, to expel the love of what is evil.”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

“There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love for the world — either by a demonstration of the world’s vanity, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon not to resign an old affection, which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one... From the constitution of our nature, the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual, and the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that domineers over it.”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

“I am not one of those who underrate the value of civil and political liberty; but I am well assured that it is only the principles of Christianity which can impart true security, prosperity, and happiness either to individuals or to nations.”
― Thomas Chalmers

“There are the votaries of fashion, who, in this way, have at length become the victims of fashionable excess—in whom the very multitude of their enjoyments, has at last extinguished their power of enjoyment—who, with the gratifications of art and nature at command, now look upon all that is around them with an eye of tastelessness—who, plied with the delights of sense and of splendour even to weariness, and incapable of higher delights, have come to the end of all their perfection, and like Solomon of old, found it to be vanity and vexation.”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

“man's needs are few. The simpler the life, therefore, the better. Indeed only three things are truly necessary in order to make life happy: the blessing of God, the benefit of books, and the benevolence of friends.”
― Thomas Chalmers

“And never does the sinner find within himself so mighty a moral transformation, as when under the belief that he is saved by grace, he feels constrained thereby to offer his heart a devoted thing, and to deny ungodliness.”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection with Reading/Discussion Guide LEADER'S EDITION

“Love may be regarded in two different conditions. The first is, when its object is at a distance, and then it becomes love in a state of desire.The second is, when its object is in possession, and then it becomes love in a state of indulgence.”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

“But what cannot be destroyed may be dispossessed and one taste may be made to give way to another, and to lose its, power entirely as the reigning affection of the mind.”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

“A man's needs are few. The simpler the life, therefore, the better. Indeed only three things are truly necessary in order to make life happy: the blessing of God, the benefit of books, and the benevolence of friends.”
― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection with Reading/Discussion Guide