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Charity enlightens where selfishness makes one blind; it widens where selfishness narrows; it is joyful where selfishness is miserable.

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?

I have abandoned my free will to You so that henceforth You alone will be the possessor of my heart and Your holy Will the rule of my actions. I desire to love You with a patient love, a love dead to self - that is, a love which completely abandons me to You; an active love; to sum it all up, a solid love with no division within itself and which will stand regardless of what may happen.

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.

O my God, You see how easily I lose heart at the thought of my imperfections. Nevertheless, I shall continue to strive after virtue. Gladly will I forego all consolation in order to offer to You the “fruit” of all my efforts. I wish to make profit out of the smallest actions and do them all for love.

Let us go to Him who would have us be wholly His...

And so in spite of this trial which robs me of all sense of enjoyment, I can still say: ' You have given me O Lord, a delight in Your doings.' Ps. 91: 5. For is there a greater joy than to suffer for Your love, O my God? The more intense and more hidden the suffering the more do You value it.

Allow yourself to be taught, allow yourself to receive orders, allow yourself to be subjected and despised, and you will be perfect.

Some of these beginners, too, make little of their faults, and at other times become over-sad when they see themselves fall into them, thinking themselves to have been saints already; and thus they become angry and impatient with themselves, which is another imperfection.

Our faith is so dead that we desire what we see more than what faith tells us.