Top 160 John Wesley Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Get all you can without hunting your soul, your body, or your neighbor. Save all you can, cutting off every needless expense. Give all you can. Be glad to give, and ready to distribute; laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may attain eternal life.”

— John Wesley

102. “Wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion.”

— John Wesley

103. “All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to the order of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by his own choice.”

— John Wesley

104. “At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation.”

— John Wesley

105. “In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is continual prayer.”

— John Wesley

106. “Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame, if I cannot write better sermons now than I did seven years ago.”

— John Wesley

107. “Faith is the divine evidence whereby the spiritual man discerneth God, and the things of God.”

— John Wesley

108. “And now run the race which is set before thee, in the royal way of universal love.”

— John Wesley

109. “It was a common saying among the Christians in the primitive Church, “The soul and the body make a man; the spirit and discipline make a Christian;” implying, that none could be real Christians, without the help of Christian discipline. But if this be so, is it any wonder that we find so few Christians; for where is Christian discipline.”

— John Wesley

110. “Even in the greatest afflictions, we ought to testify to God, that, in receiving them from his hand, we feel pleasure in the midst of the pain, from being afflicted by Him who loves us, and whom we love.”

— John Wesley

111. “Think and let think.”

— John Wesley

112. “In using all means, seek God alone. In and through every outward thing, look only to the power of His Spirit, and the merits of His Son. Beware you do not get stuck in the work itself; if you do, it is all lost labor. Nothing short of God can satisfy your soul. Therefore, fix on Him in all, through all, and above all... Remember also to use all means as means-as ordained, not for their own sake...”

— John Wesley

113. “Prayer continues in the desire of the heart, though the understanding be employed on outward things.”

— John Wesley

114. “Think not the bigotry of another is any excuse for your own.”

— John Wesley

115. “For as long as love takes up the whole heart, what room is there for sin therein?”

— John Wesley

116. “Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”

— John Wesley

117. “You have nothing to do but to save souls; therefore spend and be spent in this work.”

— John Wesley

118. “Let it be observed, that slovenliness is no part of religion; that neither this, nor any text of Scripture, condemns neatness of apparel. Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness.”

— John Wesley

119. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

— John Wesley

120. “God is so great that He communicates greatness to the least thing that is done for His service.”

— John Wesley

121. “As to matters of dress, I would recommend one never to be first in the fashion nor the last out of it.”

— John Wesley

122. “Any ‘Christians’ who take for themselves any more than the plain necessaries of life, live in an open habitual denial of the Lord. They have gained riches and hell-fire.”

— John Wesley

123. “The greater the share the people have in government, the less liberty, civil or religious, does a nation enjoy.”

— John Wesley

124. “Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.”

— John Wesley

125. “The best helps to growth in grace are the ill usage, the affronts, and the losses which befall us. We should receive them with all thankfulness, as preferable to all others, were it only on this account, that our will has no part therein.”

— John Wesley

126. “God would first, by this inspiration of his Spirit, have wrought in our hearts that holy love without which none can enter into glory.”

— John Wesley

127. “Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason.”

— John Wesley

128. “A meek spirit gives no trouble willingly to any: a quiet spirit bears all wrongs without being troubled.”

— John Wesley

129. “Whatever the natural cause, sin is the true cause of all earthquakes.”

— John Wesley

130. “I pity those who can find no good at church. But how should they if prejudice come between, an effectual bar to the grace of God?”

— John Wesley

131. “Let me daily grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

— John Wesley

132. “Get on fire for God and men will come and see you burn.”

— John Wesley

133. “If we suffer persecution and affliction in a right manner, we attain a larger measure of conformity to Christ, by a due improvement of one of these occasions, than we could have done merely by imitating his mercy, in abundance of good works.”

— John Wesley

134. “I have no objection to instruments of music in our worship, provided they are neither seen nor heard.”

— John Wesley

135. “My mother was the source from which I derived the guiding principles of my life.”

— John Wesley

136. “Whether we think of, or speak to, God, whether we act or suffer for him, all is prayer, when we have no other object than his love, and the desire of pleasing him.”

— John Wesley

137. “But as sickness and diseases have created the necessity of medicines and physicians, so the disorders of our rational nature have introduced the necessity of education and tutors.”

— John Wesley

138. “Lord, is it not Thy word, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God? Thou givest liberally, and upbraidest not. Thou hast said, if any be willing to do Thy will, he shall know. I am willing to do, let me know Thy will.”

— John Wesley

139. “They say I killed six or seven men for snoring. Well, it ain’t true. I only killed one man for snoring.”

— John Wesley

140. “To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins.”

— John Wesley

141. “It cannot be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people.”

— John Wesley

142. “Thou hidden love of God, whose height, Whose depth unfathomed no man knows, I see from far thy beauteous light, Only I sigh for thy repose.”

— John Wesley

143. “No man that ever lived, not John Calvin himself, ever asserted either original sin, or justification by faith, in more strong, more clear and express terms, than Arminius has done.”

— John Wesley

144. “Absolute perfection belongs not to man, nor to angels, but to God alone.”

— John Wesley

145. “Fierce and poisonous animals were created for terrifying man, in order that he might be made aware of the final judgment in hell.”

— John Wesley

146. “Riches naturally beget pride, love of the world, and every temper that is destructive of Christianity.”

— John Wesley

147. “I’d had the quintessential liberal arts experience, and I came out of college not having a clue of what to do.”

— John Wesley

148. “As the more holy we are upon earth the more happy we must be.”

— John Wesley

149. “Every one, though born of God in an instant, yet undoubtedly grows by slow degrees.”

— John Wesley

150. “The wearing of costly array is directly opposite to being adorned with good works. Nothing can be more evident than this; for the more you lay out on your own apparel, the less you have left to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to lodge the stranger, to relieve those that are sick and in prison.”

— John Wesley