“I praise wedlock, I praise marital union, but only because they produce me virgins.”

Even while living in the world, the heart of Mary was so filled with motherly tenderness and compassion for men that no-one ever suffered so much for their own pains, as Mary suffered for the pains of her children.

Every day we are changing, every day we are dying, and yet we fancy ourselves eternal.

Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night.

No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon the shooter of it.

When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.

Whoever eats the Lamb outside this House is profane.

A friend is long sought, hardly found, and with difficulty kept.

Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies!

Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield.

Malice swallows the greatest part of its own venom.

The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it.

Woman is the root of all evil.

Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.

A false interpretation of Scripture causes that the gospel of the Lord becomes the gospel of man, or, which is worse, of the devil.

Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.