“Perfect love means putting up with other peoples shortcomings, feeling no surprise at their weaknesses, finding encouragement even in the slightest evidence of good qualities in them.”

I am very far from practicing what I understand.

If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.

Sufferings gladly borne for others convert more people than sermons.

When we yield to discouragement it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future.

Look at His adorable face. Look at His glazed and sunken eyes. Look at His wounds. Look Jesus in the Face. There, you will see how He loves us.

You cannot be half a saint; you must be a whole saint or no saint at all.

Trials help us detach ourselves from the earth; they make us look higher than this world.

Do not fear to tell Jesus that you love Him even without feeling it. That is the way to force Jesus to help you, to carry you like a little child too feeble to walk.

As the sun shines both on the cedar and the smallest flower, so the Divine sun illumines each soul.

For me, prayer is an upward leap of the heart, an untroubled glance towards heaven, a cry of gratitude and love which I utter from the depths of sorrow as well as from the heights of joy.

Look at Him while He is looking at you.

In trial or difficulty I have recourse to Mother Mary, whose glance alone is enough to dissipate every fear.

He does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He wills.

I want to give myself totally to Him…I want to live no longer but for Him.

He has created the poor savage with no guide but natural law, and it is to their hearts that He deigns to stoop. They are His wild flowers whose homeliness delights Him.

My vocation, at last I have found it; my vocation is love.

Women have made tons of progress. But we still have a small percentage of the top jobs in any industry, in any nation in the world. I think that’s partly because from a very young age, we encourage our boys to lead and we call our girls bossy.

I know what it takes to win. If I can sell them on what it takes to win, then we are not going to lose too many football games.

The amazing thing about love and attention and encouragement and grace and success and joy is that these things are infinite. We get a new supply every single morning, and so we can give it away all day. We never, ever have to monitor the supply of others or grab or hoard.

We can’t encourage narrow mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought.

What contributed to my writing early on is how my mom encouraged it. She kept the TV off because she wanted my siblings and I to be engaged and active. So we made forts, put on plays, musicals, and I wrote like crazy.

If wanting to win is a fault, as some of my critics seem to insist, then I plead guilty. I like to win. I know no other way. It’s in my blood.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.