Edith Stein Quotes
Edith Stein was a German philosopher, phenomenologist, and Carmelite nun. She studied under Edmund Husserl at Gottingen, served as his assistant, and wrote her doctoral dissertation on the problem of empathy as the foundation for the constitution of other minds. The quotes below are attributed to Edith Stein, organized by topic.
Browse Edith Stein by topic
Edith Stein on God
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“All that comes to me from God is a sign of His love.”
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“The deeper one is drawn into God, the more one must go out of oneself.”
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“God is truth. All who seek truth seek God, whether this is clear to them or not.”
Letter to Sr. Adelgundis Jaegerschmid, 23 March 1938 -
“Collected Works Vol. IV. Part 1 : Before the Face of God , Ch.1 : "On the History and Spirit of Carmel”
What is meant by "the Law of the Lord"? Psalm 118 which we pray every Sunday and on solemnities at Prime, is entirely filled with the command to know the Law and to be led by it through life. The Psalmist was certainly thinking of the Law of the Old Covenant. Knowing it actually did require life-long study and fulfilling it, life-long exertion of the will. But the Lord has freed us from the yoke o -
“Only the person blinded by the passion of controversy could deny that woman in soul and body is formed for a particular purpose. The clear and irrevocable world of Scripture declares what daily experience teaches from the beginning of the world: woman is destined to be wife and mother.”
Wikiquote -
“The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's own life in order to make room for God's life.”
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“Every profession in which woman's soul comes into its own and which can be formed by woman's soul is an authentic woman's profession.”
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“As woman was the first to be tempted, so did God 's message of grace come first to a woman, and each time woman's assent determined the destiny of humanity as a whole.”
The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace(1932) -
“The distinction of the female sex is that a woman was the person who was permitted to help establish God's new kingdom; the distinction of the male sex is that redemption came through the Son of Man, the new Adam.”
The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace(1932)
Edith Stein on Knowledge
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“As a child of the Jewish people who, by the grace of God, for the past eleven years has also been a child of the Catholic Church, I dare to speak to the Father of Christianity about that which oppresses millions of Germans. For weeks we have seen deeds perpetrated in Germany which mock any sense of justice and humanity, not to mention love of neighbor. For years the leaders of National Socialism h”
Letter to Pope Pius XI (1933) as translated in Inside the Vatican (2003), p. 27 -
“However, we are not merely used up as cells are, but we can become aware of our relationship with the wholes to which we belong (I even believe one can experience the operative developmental tendencies) and can voluntarily submit to them. The more lively and powerful such a consciousness becomes in a people, the more it forms itself into a "state" and this formation is its organization. The state ”
Self-Portrait In Letters, 1916-1942 (The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 5)
Edith Stein on Life
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“Everything abstract is ultimately part of the concrete. Everything inanimate finally serves the living. That is why every activity dealing in abstraction stands in ultimate service to a living whole.”
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“Each woman who lives in the light of eternity can fulfill her vocation, no matter if it is in marriage, in a religious order, or in a worldly profession.”
Spirituality of the Christian Woman(1932) -
“For a wholesome collaboration of the sexes in professional life will be possible only if both achieve a calm and objective awareness of their nature and draw practical conclusions from it.”
The Ethos of Woman's Professions(1930)
Edith Stein on Love
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“The deepest feminine yearning is to achieve a loving union which, in its development, validates this maturation and simultaneously stimulates and furthers the desire for perfection in others.”
Spirituality of the Christian Woman(1932)
Edith Stein on Mind
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“Empathy is the experience of foreign consciousness in general.”
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“However, we are not merely used up as cells are, but we can become aware of our relationship with the wholes to which we belong (I even believe one can experience the operative developmental tendencies) and can voluntarily submit to them. The more lively and powerful such a consciousness becomes in a people, the more it forms itself into a "state" and this formation is its organization. The state is a self-confident people that disciplines its functions.”
Self-Portrait In Letters, 1916-1942 (The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 5)
Edith Stein on Nature
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“We can do nothing ourselves; God must do it. To speak to Him thus is easier by nature for woman than for man because a natural desire lives in her to give herself completely to someone.”
Fundamental Principles of Women's Education(1931)
Edith Stein on Truth
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“Truth is more important than success.”
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“The imperturbability of the Church resides in her ability to harmonize the unconditional preservation of eternal truths with an unmatchable elasticity of adjustment to the circumstances and challenges of changing times.”
Problems of Women's Education(1932)
Edith Stein on Virtue
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“The world doesn't need what women have. It needs what women are.”