Top 200 John Eldredge Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”

— John Eldredge

Featured in: Warrior Quotes, Inspirational Quotes for Men, Adventure Quotes, Hero Quotes

2. “Every man is a warrior inside. But the choice to fight is his own.”

— John Eldredge

3. “The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.”

— John Eldredge

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

4. “The most dangerous man on earth is the man who has reckoned with his own death. All men die; few men ever really live.”

— John Eldredge

5. “Without the anticipation of better things ahead, we will have no heart for the journey.”

— John Eldredge

6. “Security is not found in the absence of danger, but in the presence of Jesus.”

— John Eldredge

7. “You can’t fight a battle you don’t think exists.”

— John Eldredge

8. “Desire reveals design, and design reveals destiny.”

— John Eldredge

9. “A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal.”

— John Eldredge

10. “A man needs a much bigger orbit than a woman. He needs a mission, a life purpose, and he needs to know his name. Only then is he fit for a woman, for only then does he have something to invite her into.”

— John Eldredge

11. “Faith looks back and draws courage; hope looks ahead, and keeps desire alive.”

— John Eldredge

12. “Falling in love with God is the most important thing a person can do.”

— John Eldredge

13. “We think you’ll find that every woman in her heart of hearts longs for three things: to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. That’s what makes a woman come alive.”

— John Eldredge

14. “Worship is the act of the abandoned heart adoring its God.”

— John Eldredge

15. “There is something about human nature that just doesn’t want to face the reality that we live in two worlds. We live in the physical, material world where we have jobs, read books, and go about our business. And we live in a spiritual world – and that is a world at war.”

— John Eldredge

16. “In the end, it doesn’t matter how well we have performed or what we have accomplished – a life without heart is not worth living.”

— John Eldredge

17. “Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win, only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue.”

— John Eldredge

18. “The point is the love story. We live in a love story in the midst of war.”

— John Eldredge

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

19. “I wasn’t mean; I wasn’t evil. I was nice. And let me tell you, a hesitant man is the last thing in the world a woman needs. She needs a lover and a warrior, not a Really Nice Guy.”

— John Eldredge

20. “You would not ask someone with a broken arm to swim the English Channel, so you cannot demand that the broken to live as if they were whole.”

— John Eldredge

21. “Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed and even more rarely healed, every man carries a wound. And the wound is nearly always given by his father.”

— John Eldredge

22. “Story is the language of the heart.”

— John Eldredge

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

23. “We are created for adventure, and if we cannot find one, we start blowing things out of proportion so it feels like we have one.”

— John Eldredge

24. “Most of us live in a fog. It’s like life is a movie we arrived to 20 minutes late. You know something important seems to be going on. But we can’t figure out the story. We don’t know what part we’re supposed to play or what the plot is.”

— John Eldredge

25. “If a man is ever to find out who he is and what he is here for, he has got to take that journey for himself. He has got to get his heart back.”

— John Eldredge

26. “An intimate encounter with Jesus is the most transforming experience of human existence. To know him as he is, is to come home. To have his life, joy, love, and presence cannot be compared. A true knowledge of Jesus is our greatest need and our greatest happiness.”

— John Eldredge

27. “Until a man learns to deal with the fact that life is hard, he will spend his days chasing the wrong thing, using all his energies trying to make life comfortable, soft, nice, and that is no way for any man to spend his life.”

— John Eldredge

28. “A true knowledge of Jesus is our greatest need and our greatest happiness.”

— John Eldredge

29. “But a wound unfelt is a wound unhealed.”

— John Eldredge

30. “Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of man.”

— John Eldredge

31. “It is the thoughts and intents of the heart that shape a person’s life.”

— John Eldredge

32. “You live in a world at war. Spiritual attack must be a category you think in or you will misunderstand more than half of what happens in your marriage.”

— John Eldredge

33. “My heart matters to God. My heart has always mattered to him...”

— John Eldredge

34. “The real you is on the side of God against the false self.”

— John Eldredge

35. “The true story of every person in this world is not the story you see, the external story. The true story of each person is the journey of his or her heart.”

— John Eldredge

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

36. “She is the crescendo, the final, astonishing work of God. Woman. In one last flourish creation comes to a finish with Eve. She is the Master’s finishing touch.”

— John Eldredge

37. “We are made in the image of God; we carry within us the desire for our true life of intimacy and adventure. To say we want less than that is to lie.”

— John Eldredge

38. “Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is a facade, an elaborate fig leaf, a brilliant disguise.”

— John Eldredge

39. “Eve is a life giver; she is Adam’s ally. It is to both of them that the charter for adventure is given. It will take both of them to sustain life. And they will both need to fight together.”

— John Eldredge

40. “A man does not go to a woman to get his strength; he goes to her to offer it.”

— John Eldredge

41. “Most Christians are still living with an Old Testament view of their heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, ‘My heart is deceitfully wicked.’ No, it’s not. Not after the work of Christ, because the promise of the new covenant is a new heart.”

— John Eldredge

42. “It takes great courage to be vulnerable. It takes enormous strength to be a real woman.”

— John Eldredge

43. “One of the great wonders of Christianity is that you were born into your times, to set your times aright.”

— John Eldredge

44. “Desire, both the whispers and the shouts, is the map we have been given to find the only life worth living.”

— John Eldredge

45. “I don’t write anything that I haven’t lived. In terms of integrity, you have to write what you live. And if you write beyond what you live, it is theory. And theory is not helpful. It is just not.”

— John Eldredge

46. “Every man carries a wound. I have never met a man without one. No matter how good your life may have seemed to you, you live in a broken world full of broken people.”

— John Eldredge

47. “Every song you love, every memory you cherish, every moment that has moved you to holy tears has been given to you from the One who has been pursuing you from your first breath in order to win your heart.”

— John Eldredge

48. “Henri Nouwen once asked Mother Teresa for spiritual direction. Spend one hour each day in adoration of your Lord, she said, and never do anything you know is wrong. Follow this and you’ll be fine.”

— John Eldredge

49. “One of the deepest of all human longings is the longing to belong, to be a part of things, to be invited in. We want to be part of the fellowship. Where did that come from?”

— John Eldredge

50. “The true test of a man, the beginning of his redemption, actually starts when he can no longer rely on what he’s used all his life. The real journey begins when the false self fails.”

— John Eldredge