The Quotable Whitefield

It is better to be a saint than a scholar; indeed, the only way to be a true scholar is to be striving to be a true saint.

The bank of heaven is a sure bank. I have drawn thousands of bills upon it, and never had one sent back protested.

There is not a thing on the face of the earth that I abhor so much as idleness or idle people.

I am burning with a fever, and have a violent cold; but Christ’s presence makes me smile at pain; and the fire of his love burns up all fevers whatsoever.

We must be made perfect by sufferings. If we do not meet them in our younger days, we shall certainly have them in the decline of life.

God has condescended to become an author, and yet people will not read his writings. There are very few that ever gave this Book of God, the grand charter of salvation, one fair reading through.

Suffering times are a Christian’s best-improving times.

God forbid that I should travel with anybody a quarter of an hour without speaking of Christ to them.

O may God put me into one furnace after another, that my soul may be transparent; that I may see God as he is.

Young Christians are like little rivulets that make a large noise, and have shallow water; old Christians are like deep water that makes little noise, carries a good load, and gives not way.

I have put my soul, as a blank, into the hands of Jesus Christ my Redeemer, and desired him to write upon it what he pleases. I know it will be his own image.

I hope to grow rich in heaven by taking care of orphans on earth.

It is very easy talking what we can bear, and what we can do, but let God lay his hand on us, and we shall see what we are.

When I die the only epitaph that I desire to be engraved upon my tombstone is “Here lies George Whitefield; what sort of man he was the great day will discover.”