St. John of the Cross

"It is best to learn to silence the faculties and to cause them to be still, so that God may speak."

 **Please note: Context is vital for this quote!** This is from Ascent of Mt. Carmel, and John is talking about why we must go through the passive night and let go of meditation. He says elsewhere: "At the proper time one should abandon this imaginative meditation so that the journey to God may not be hindered, but, so that there is no regression, one should not abandon it before the due time. For though the apprehensions of these faculties are not a proximate means to union for proficients, they are a remote means for beginners. By these sensitive means beginners dispose their spirit and habituate it to spiritual things, and at the same time they void their senses of all other base, temporal, secular, and natural forms and images." (not me, copied from Facebook)