If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable... we must be content to creep along the ground, and never soar.
To obtain the gift of holiness is the work of a life.
What is more likely, considering our perverse nature, than that we should neglect the duties, while we wish to retain the privileges of our Christian profession? Our.
Nothing is more common in an age like this, when books abound, than to fancy that the gratification of a love of reading is real study.
Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman.
And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this.
From shadows and symbols into the truth.
The heart is a secret with its Maker; no one on earth can hope to get at it or to touch it.
The minds of young people are pliable and elastic, and easily accommodate themselves to any one they fall in with.
Ihre Geheimnisse sind nicht anderes als die in menschliche Sprache gekleideten Formeln von Wahrheiten, die der menschliche Geist nicht zu erfassen vermag.
The rulers of the world were Monks, when they could not be Martyrs.
Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.
The nature of the case and the history of philosophy combine to recommend to us this division of intellectual labour between Academies and Universities. To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person. He, too, who spends his day in dispensing his existing knowledge to all comers is unlikely to have either leisure or energy to acquire new.
He can no longer have God for a Father, who has not the Church for a Mother.
Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power.
Wine is good in itself, but not for a man in a fever. If our souls were in perfect health, riches and authority, and strong powers of mind, would be very suitable to us: but they are weak and diseased, and require so great a grace of God to bear these advantages well, that we may be well content to be without them.
The profession and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the time, and silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not then held, but that it was not questioned.
If I looked into a mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator.
We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to wither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops – which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depths of desolation, never to despair.
If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first – Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.
O my Lord and Savior... If You bring pain or sorrow on me, give me grace to bear it well – keep me from fretfulness and selfishness. If You give me health and strength and success in this world, keep me always on my guard, lest these great gifts carry me away from You.