“There seem to me a great many blessings which come from true poverty and I should be sorry to be deprived of them.”

Humility must always be doing its work like a bee making honey in the hive: without humility all will be lost.

Settle yourself in solitude, and you will come upon God in yourself.

Mental prayer is nothing else but being on terms of friendship with God, frequently conversing in secret with Him.

It constantly happens that the Lord permits a soul to fall so that it may grow humbler.

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people’s, if we are always criticizing trivial actions – which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.

Souls who do not practice prayer are like people whose limbs are paralyzed.

No one should think or say anything of another which he would not wish thought or said of himself.

It is love alone that gives worth to all things.

All things pass; Patience attains all it strives for.

In a state of grace, the soul is like a well of limpid water, from which flow only streams of clearest crystal. Its works are pleasing both to God and man, rising from the River of Life, beside which it is rooted like a tree.

How poor is the wisdom of men, and how uncertain their forecast!

It is impossible for human tongue to exaggerate the riches which a vision from God brings to the soul: it even bestows health and refreshment on the body.

To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.

Consider seriously how quickly people change, and how little trust is to be had in them; and hold fast to God, Who does not change.

In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.

From moment to moment one can bear much.

The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. The calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.

Whether you be a man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

It’s a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration, it is a very easy matter, but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.

If I’m not the love of your life I’ll be your greatest loss instead.

Instead of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, one should demand, more modestly, the least amount of avoidable suffering for all.

Anyone who was out to change the world by changing others was to be regarded with suspicion. The temptations of such a position were too great to be resisted.

The things that pose the greatest threats to your survival are the most real things.

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled.