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The soul ought to consider aridity and darkness as fortunate omens; as signs that God is beside it, freeing it from itself, taking the initiative out of its hand.

The soul, because its searching for the Beloved is real and its love great, will not leave undone anything it can do itself. The soul that really loves God is not easygoing in its efforts to find the Son of God, the Beloved. Even when it has done all it can it is still unsatisfied, feeling it has done nothing.

During mental prayer...remain before God like a poor, mute paralytic at the door of a rich man.

We should never fear the battle when the good of our neighbor is involved.

Great deeds are forbidden me. I cannot preach the Gospel nor shed by blood-but what does it matter? My brothers toil instead of me and I, a little child, keep close by the throne of God and I love for those who fight.

The insight of the most skilled doctors can't compare to that of a mother's heart.

Good works wrought in the season of spiritual dryness and hardness are like the freshness of the winter morning. What we then do for God in dryness of spirit is most precious in His eyes. It is then that we acquire abundant virtues and graces, and what we achieve with toil and labor is in general better, more perfect and lasting than what we acquire in spiritual sweetness.

Our suffering never makes Him happy. He sends it to us and, as it were, turns His head while so doing, but suffering is a thing that is necessary for us.

No one can make me frightened anymore, because I know what to believe about His mercy and His love; I know that, in the twinkling of an eye, all those thousands of sins would be consumed as a drop of water cast into a blazing fire.

Let us live on the Cross. The Cross is the denial of our will. Heaven is on the Cross because Jesus is there.

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.

I suppose I ought to be distressed that I so often fall asleep during meditation and thanksgiving after Holy Communion, but I reflect that little children, asleep or awake, are equally dear to their parents; that to perform operations doctors put their patients to sleep; and finally, that 'The Lord knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are but dust.' Ps. 102: 14.