Top 300 J. C. Ryle Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “The person that goes regularly and intelligently to the Lord’s Table finds it increasingly hard to yield to sin and conform to the world.”

— J. C. Ryle

302. “A right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity.”

— J. C. Ryle

303. “Don’t think,” whispers Satan: he knows that an unconverted heart is like a dishonest businessman’s financial records, they will not bear close inspection. “Consider your ways,” says the Word of God – stop.”

— J. C. Ryle

304. “The standard of the world, and the standard of the Lord Jesus, are indeed widely different. They are more than different. They are flatly contradictory one to the other.”

— J. C. Ryle

305. “Let it be a settled principle in our minds, in reading the Bible, that Christ is the central sun of the whole book. So long as we keep Him in view, we shall never greatly err in our search for spiritual knowledge. Once losing sight of Christ, we shall find the whole Bible dark and full of difficulty.”

— J. C. Ryle

306. “Go to the cross of Christ, all you that want to be delivered from the power of selfishness.”

— J. C. Ryle

307. “Let us never forget that truth, distorted and exaggerated, can become the mother of the most dangerous heresies.”

— J. C. Ryle

308. “Pride sits in all our hearts by nature. We are born proud. Pride makes us rest satisfied with ourselves, thinking we are good enough as we are. It closes our ears against all advice, refuses the gospel of Christ and turns every one to his own way.”

— J. C. Ryle

309. “Churches may decay and perish; riches may make themselves wings and fly away-but he who builds their happiness on Christ crucified and union with Him by faith, that person is standing on a foundation which shall never be moved, and will know something of true peace.”

— J. C. Ryle

310. “We corrupt the Word of God most dangerously, when we throw any doubt on the plenary inspiration of any part of Holy Scripture.”

— J. C. Ryle

311. “Prayer needs neither learning, wisdom or book knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing but heart and will.”

— J. C. Ryle

312. “True charity never envies others when they prosper, nor rejoices in the calamities of others when they are in trouble.”

— J. C. Ryle

313. “The greater are our affections the deeper are our afflictions, and the more we love the more we have to weep.”

— J. C. Ryle

314. “What could an unsanctified man do in Heaven, if by any chance he got there? Let that question be fairly looked in the face and fairly answered. No man can possibly be happy in a place where he is not in his element and where all around him is not congenial to his tastes, habits and character.”

— J. C. Ryle

315. “I am one of those old-fashioned ministers who believe the whole Bible and everything that it contains.”

— J. C. Ryle

316. “For my part I am persuaded the more light we have, the more we see our own sinfulness: the nearer we get to heaven, the more we are clothed with humility.”

— J. C. Ryle

317. “If we would have good ministers, we must remember our Lord’s example, and pray for them. Their work is heavy. Their responsibility is enormous. Their strength is small. Let us see that we support them, and hold up their hands by our prayers.”

— J. C. Ryle

318. “Yet sanctification, in its place and proportion, is quite as important as justification. Sound protestant and evangelical doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse than useless: it does positive harm. It is despised by keen-sighted and shrewd men of the world, as an unreal and hollow thing, and brings religion into contempt.”

— J. C. Ryle

319. “There must not only be good preaching, but good hearing.”

— J. C. Ryle

320. “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

321. “The heart of man is the same in every age. The spiritual medicine which it requires is always the same.”

— J. C. Ryle

322. “The doctrine of Christ crucified is the strength of a Minister. I, for one, would not be without it for all the world.”

— J. C. Ryle

323. “Prayer is the surest remedy against the devil and besetting sins.”

— J. C. Ryle

324. “A Bible reading laity is a nation’s surest defence against error.”

— J. C. Ryle

325. “He that would be safe from the acts of evil, must widely avoid the occasions.”

— J. C. Ryle

326. “Let us never measure our religion by that of others, and think we are doing enough if we have gone beyond our neighbors.”

— J. C. Ryle

327. “As the sun gazed upon makes everything else look dark and dim, so does the cross darken the false splendour of this world.”

— J. C. Ryle

328. “A man who is born again has a special love for all true disciples of Christ. Like his Father in heaven, he loves all men with a great general love, but he has a special love for those who share his faith in Christ. Like his Lord and Saviour, he loves the worst of sinners and could weep over them; but he has a peculiar love for those who are believers. He is never so much at home as when he is in their company.”

— J. C. Ryle

329. “El pecado nos llega, como Judas, con un beso y, como Joab, con una mano extendida y palabras halagadoras.”

— J. C. Ryle

330. “A deep sense of sin, a humble willingness to be saved in God’s way, a teachable readiness to give up our own prejudices when a more excellent way is shown, these are the principal things. These things the two disciples possessed, and therefore our Lord “went with them” and guided them into all truth.”

— J. C. Ryle

331. “He and sin must quarrel, if he and God are to be friends.”

— J. C. Ryle

332. “A man’s state before God may always be measured by his prayers.”

— J. C. Ryle

333. “So that the best believer, if he knows what he says, and says the truth, is but a sinner at the best.”

— J. C. Ryle

334. “There are many things which are not needful. Riches are not needful. Health is not needful. Fine clothes are not needful. Noble friends are not needful. The favour of the world is not needful. Gifts and learning are not needful. Millions have reached heaven without these things. Thousands are reaching heaven every year without them. But no one ever reached heaven without “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”

— J. C. Ryle

335. “The very animals whose smell is most offensive to us have no idea that they are offensive, and are not offensive to one another.”

— J. C. Ryle

336. “The love of Christ to sinners is the very essence and marrow of the Gospel.”

— J. C. Ryle

337. “Tell me what a man does in the matter of Bible-reading and praying, in the matter of Sunday, public worship, and the Lord’s Supper, and I will soon tell you what he is, and on which road he is travelling.”

— J. C. Ryle

338. “Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank and class and name and nation and people and tongue, a disease from which there never was but one born of woman that was free. Need I say that One was Christ Jesus the Lord?”

— J. C. Ryle

339. “Worst of all, there are hundreds of young unestablished believers who are so infected with the same love of excitement, that they actually think it a duty to be always seeking it. Insensibly almost to themselves, they take up a kind of hysterical, sensational, sentimental Christianity, until they are never content with the “old paths,” and, like the Athenians, are always running after something new.”

— J. C. Ryle

340. “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

341. “What is the cause of most backslidings? I believe, as a general rule, one of the chief causes is neglect of private prayer.”

— J. C. Ryle

342. “It is poor philosophy to say we will believe nothing unless we can understand everything!”

— J. C. Ryle