“On this path, it is only the first step that counts.”

When we have been to Holy Communion, the balm of love envelops the soul as the flower envelops the bee.

I thought a time would come when people would rout me out of Ars with sticks, when the Bishop would suspend me, and I should end my days in prison. I see, however, that I am not worthy of such a grace.

Have you been working on Sunday? Have you been buying or selling without necessity in the course of this holy day? Give to the poor some alms which will exceed the profit you have made.

Humility is like a pair of scales: the lower one side falls, the higher rises the other. Let us humble ourselves like the Blessed Virgin and we shall be exalted.

There were two saints in the desert, who had sewed thorns into all their clothes; and we seek for nothing but comfort!

Our body is a vessel of corruption; it is meant for death and for the worms, nothing more! And yet we devote ourselves to satisfying it, rather than to enriching our soul, which is so great that we can conceive nothing greater – no, nothing, nothing!

If you are attached to the things of this earth, you should give alms sufficient to enable you to punish your avarice by depriving yourself of all that is not absolutely necessary for life.

Upon receiving Holy Communion, the Adorable Blood of Jesus Christ really flows in our veins and His Flesh is really blended with ours.

Oh, how I like those little mortifications that are seen by nobody, such as rising a quarter of an hour sooner, rising for a little while in the night to pray!

Shall we all be saved? Shall we go to Heaven? Alas, my children, we do not know at all! But I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. See, they fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter.

All that we do without offering it to God is wasted.

Our Guardian Angels are our most faithful friends, because they are with us day and night, always and everywhere. We ought often to invoke them.

Do not try to please everybody. Try to please God, the angels, and the saints – they are your public.

Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.

If you find it impossible to pray, hide behind your good Angel and charge him to pray in your stead.

A priest goes to Heaven or a priest goes to Hell with a thousand people behind.

The system will always be defended by those countless people who have enough intellect to defend but not quite enough to innovate.

To have attained to the human form is a source of joy. What an incomparable bliss it is to undergo these countless transitions.

Only super-efforts count.

I’m counting every heartbeat to tell you how much life you give to me.

I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.

He looks up in the sky. I count stars in his eyes.

How you played in yesterday’s game is all that counts.

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.