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What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love.

They are too attached to their honor. . . . These souls, for the most part, grieve over anything said against them. They do not embrace the cross but drag it along, and so it hurts and wearies them and breaks them to pieces. However, if the cross is loved, it is easy to bear, this is certain.

...You (Jesus) crown the intense desire to do a work, where there is no possibility of doing it, more than a work done without the desire. And if Your work will not be accomplished, it will not be for this reason, that is not Your will, but because there is not the proper disposition in creatures, or generous hearts to do it, as would be necessary...

Charity liberates the will from everything, imposing as a duty to love God above all else. This however is possible only when anxious desire for creatures is removed.

The soul suffers many trials, for the Lord wants the poor gardener to think that all the trouble he has taken in watering the garden and keeping it alive is lost. Then is the proper time for weeding and rooting out the smaller plants, and this must be done, however small they may be, if they are useless; for we know that no efforts of ours are availing if God withholds from us the water of grace, and we must despise ourselves as nothing and as less than nothing. By doing this we can gain great humility and then the flowers will begin to grow afresh.

Those who now desire to question God or receive some vision or revelation are guilty not only of foolish behavior but of also offending Him by not fixing their eyes entirely on Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.

God is more pleased by one work, however small, done secretly, without desire that it be known, than a thousand done with desire that men know of them. The person who works for God with purest love not only cares nothing about whether men see him, but does not even seek that God Himself know of them.

...or if, as I have said, you are very careful about your prayer, you will soon find yourselves gradually reaching the summit of the mountain without knowing how. But how harsh it sounds to say that we must take pleasure in nothing, unless we also say what consolations and delights this renunciation brings in its train, and what a great gain it is, even in this life!

The fly that clings to honey hinders its flight, and the soul that allows itself attachment to spiritual sweetness hinders its own liberty and contemplation.

Everything with which the soul occupies itself on the natural plane should be rooted out; thus it can be taught to know God, placing all its satisfaction in Him alone.

Hope creates an emptiness in the memory constraining it to occupy itself with something it does not yet possess. It teaches us to hope for everything from God and for nothing from ourselves or from other creatures; to hope for eternal happiness from Him and therefore to renounce every pleasure and possession in this life.

He should not go seeking after new things which can only satisfy the desires in a superficial manner (and even here cannot satisfy fully) while leaving the spirit weak and empty, without deep inner virtue.