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I cannot understand how humility exists, or can exist, without love, or love without humility, and it is impossible for these two virtues to exist save where there is great detachment from all created things.

In order that love be true and friendship endure, the wills of the friends must be in accord.

Believe me, the question is not whether we wear the religious habit or not, but whether we practice the virtues and submit our will in all things to the will of God.

O my Lord, how poorly we profit from the blessing You grant us! You seek ways and means and You devise plans to show Your love for us; we, inexperienced in loving You, esteem this love so poorly that our minds, little excercised in love, go where they always go and cease to think of the great mysteries this language, spoken by the Holy Spirit, contains within itself...

True union can very well be reached, with God's help, if we make the effort to obtain it by keeping our wills fixed only on that which is God's will.

We seem to ourselves to be making progress, yet we become weary, for, believe me, we are walking through a mist; it will be fortunate if we do not lose ourselves. Do you think, my daughters, if we could travel from one country to another in eight days, that it would be well to spend a year on the journey, through wind, snow, and inundations and over bad roads? Would it not be better to get it over at once, for it is full of dangers and serpents?

...yet true humility is not attended with trouble; it does not disturb the soul; it causes neither obscurity nor aridity: on the contrary, it consoles. It is altogether different, bringing with it calm, sweetness, and light. It is no doubt painful; but, on the other hand, it is consoling, because we see how great is the mercy of our Lord in allowing the soul to have that pain, and how well the soul is occupied.

We must have no confidence whatever our own strength, but trust in His mercy and until we do this all is weakness.

When you speak with a Lord so great, you should think of Who it is you are addressing and what you yourself are, if only that you may speak to Him with proper respect. How can you address a king with the reverence he deserves unless you are clearly conscious of his position and yours?

The Lord wishes us rather to make requests of Him and to remember that we are in His presence, for He knows what is fitting for us. I cannot believe in the efficacy of human activity in matters where His Majesty appears to have set a limit to it and to have been pleased to reserve action to Himself.

Do you think it possible that anyone who really and truly loves God can love vanities, riches, worldly pleasures or honours? Can he engage in strife or feel envy? No; for his only desire is to please the Beloved.

One fall is not sufficient for a person to be lost nor are many, if they love You and not the things of the world. They journey in the valley of humility. I cannot understand what it is that makes people afraid of setting out on the road of perfection.