“Endeavor to have always in your hand a pious book, that with this shield you may defend yourself against bad thoughts.”

If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.

Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.

Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied.

Do not let your deeds believe your words, lest when you speak in church someone may say to himself, “Why do you not practice what you preach?

The tired ox treads with a firmer step.

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.