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If we are determined to submit ourselves and to carry the cross, we shall find in it great refreshment.

All the being of creation, then, compared with the infinite Being of God, is nothing. And therefore the soul that sets its affection upon the being of creation is likewise nothing in the eyes of God, and less than nothing; for, as we have said, love makes equality and similitude, and even sets the lover below the object of his love.

Not observing the imperfections of others, preserving silence and a continual communion with God will eradicate great imperfections from the soul and make it the possessor of great virtues.

My spirit has become dry because it forgets to feed on you.

When our hearts are free from liking and judging people merely according to their natural gifts we are not held captive by external and changing charms.  We are instead free to love people as they really are, and we can penetrate more easily to the core of their personality, their true goodness.

They condemn others in their heart when they see that they have not the kind of devotion which they themselves desire; and sometimes they even say this in words, herein resembling the Pharisee, who boasted of himself, praising God for his own good works and despising the publican.

If a person is not quite blind, that person often refuses to be led by a guide. Since he sees a little, he thinks it is best to go in whatever direction he can distinguish because he sees no better direction. So he can lead astray a guide who sees more than he, for after all, he tells the guide where to go. Also a soul may lean on any knowledge or feeling of its own. However great this knowledge might be, it is small and far different from what God is. A soul must pass beyond everything to unknowing.

There is no room for the boundless gifts of God save in a heart that is empty and solitary, and they enter none but such a heart.

If the soul then does as much as it can on its own part, namely if it succeeds in being empty and dispossessed of all things, it is impossible that God should fail to do His part by communicating Himself to it, at least in secret silence: more impossible even than the absurd hypothesis that the ray of the sun should fail to shine in a serene sky.

So the person no longer gets annoyed and upset at herself because of her faults, not at her neighbor because of his, nor will she be displeased at God and disrespectfully quarrelsome for not making her good at once!

What you most seek and desire you will not find by this way of yours, nor through high contemplation, but in much humility and submission of heart.

As the bee draws honey from all plants and makes use of them only for that end, so the soul most easily draws the sweetness of love from all that happens to it.  It makes all things subservient to the end of loving God, whether they are sweet or bitter.