“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”

Pure, holy simplicity confounds all the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the flesh.

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man’s conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.

We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather, we must be simple, humble and pure.

It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.

If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.

Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin!

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens, you have made them bright, precious and fair.

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.

Great and glorious God, and Thou Lord Jesus, I pray you shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. Be found of me, Lord, so that in all things I may act only in accordance with Thy holy will.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom You light the night, and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.

Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.

Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play, A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay Hot Titan’s beams, which then did glister fair.

He that hath light within their own breast, may sit in the centre and enjoy bright day.

I dreamed in skies of blue before september stole all the light.

There is no end to your light.

I see the light in your smile.

I don’t think the people of the slave states will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other argument is resorted to other than moral persuasion.

O innocence, how glorious and happy a portion art thou to the breast that possesses thee! thou fearest neither the eyes nor the tongues of men. Truth, the most powerful of all things, is thy strongest friend; and the brighter the light is in which thou art displayed, the more it discovers thy transcendent beauties.