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Be sure, my daughters, that true perfection consists in the love of God and our neighbor, and the better we keep both these commandments, the more perfect we shall be.

I know, too, that our bodies are not the chief factors in the work we have before us; they are accessory: extreme humility is the principal point. It is the want of this, I believe, that stops people's progress. It may seem that we have made but little way: we should believe that is the case, and that our sisters are advancing much more rapidly than we are.

Through this humility acquired by means of self-knowledge, individuals are purged of all those imperfections of the vice of pride into which they fell in the time of their prosperity. Aware of their own dryness and wretchedness, the thought of their being more advanced than others does not even occur in its first movements, as it did before; on the contrary, they realize that others are better.

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

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 desire to stand out or excel is natural to a creature. But if we would reflect on it, what purpose do those social triumphs serve? They disappear between night and morning. ...the only thing that is worthwhile here on earth is whatever brings us closer to God.

I invited the whole earth to bless you, to serve you. Forever and always, never to end! I invited the entire sea to bless you, to serve you. Forever and always, never to end! I called him, invited ungrateful man, to bless you, to serve you, to praise and to love you, forever and always, never to end.

Softened and humbled by aridities and hardships and by other temptations and trials in which God exercises the soul in the course of this night, individuals become meek toward God and themselves and also toward their neighbor. As a result they no longer become impatiently angry with themselves and their faults or with their neighbor's; neither are they displeased or disrespectfully querulous with God for not making them perfect quickly.

...if you see a person praised, the Lord wants you to be much happier than if you yourself were being praised. This, indeed, is easy, for if you have humility you will feel sorry to see yourself praised. But this happiness that comes when the virtues of the Sisters are known is a very good thing; and when we see some fault in them, it is also a very good thing to be sorry and hide the fault as though it were our own.

I tell you, Sisters, so that you will see the mercy of our Lord and how His Majesty does not abandon the one who desires to serve Him.

Beg our Lord to grant you perfect love of neighbor and leave the rest to Him.

It is also an evident truth that sympathy with the neighbor grows the more the soul is united with God through love.