This world’s a bubble.
The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?
If I am given a formula, and I am ignorant of its meaning, it cannot teach me anything, but if I already know it what does the formula teach me?
Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.
The sole purpose of life is to gain merit for life in eternity.
What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.
Custom is second nature.
Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.
The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.
I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.
I was in misery, and misery is the state of every soul overcome by friendship with mortal things and lacerated when they are lost. Then the soul becomes aware of the misery which is its actual condition even before it loses them.
If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.
And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here.
The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
It is not often that we use language correctly; usually we use it incorrectly, though we understand each others meaning.
Lord, who art always the same, give that I know myself, give that I know Thee.
For what am I to myself without You, but a guide to my own downfall?
Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service.
For in our hope we are saved.
He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy. He, the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.