“To conquer himself is the greatest victory that man can gain.”

They who load us with insults and ignominies give us the means of acquiring treasures more precious than any that man can gain in this life.

He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself, or he loses his labor.

The glory of God is humankind fully alive.

Pray as if God will take care of all; act as if all is up to you.

A religious ought to dread more being afraid of poverty than experiencing it.

The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness.

If our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, we are guilty of heresy.

What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines.

As for joy, as little as one can have of it in this life, experience shows that it is not the idle who possess it, but those who are zealous in the service of God.

Stand firm and immovable as an anvil when it is beaten upon.

Let us work as if success depended upon ourselves alone, but with heartfelt conviction that we are doing nothing, and God everything.

If you attach your heart to certain places and occupations, obedience oftentimes places you in some other place that you may not like; to be always cheerful, be always humble and obedient.

Remember that bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, as I have said, is also prayer by means of which you can please God our Lord.

It is proper to ask for sorrow with Christ in sorrow, anguish with Christ in anguish, tears and deep grief because of the great affliction Christ endures for me.

May the perfect grace and eternal love of Christ our Lord be our never-failing protection and help.

The acknowledgment of and gratitude for favors and gifts received is loved and esteemed in Heaven and on earth.

The great moments of life are but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes; a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lips though they cannot speak.

The greatest part of mankind labor under one delirium or another; and Don Quixote differed from the rest, not in madness, but the species of it. The covetous, the prodigal, the superstitious, the libertine, and the coffee-house politician, are all Quixotes in their several ways.

My greatest act of self love was knowing when to walk away.

For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door.

Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary.

It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.

The way to do great science is to stay away from subjects that are overpopulated, and go to the frontiers.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.