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There are others who are vexed with themselves when they observe their own imperfectness, and display an impatience that is not humility; so impatient are they about this that they would fain be saints in a day.

The remembrance of my faults humbles me and makes me afraid to rely on my own strength, which is nothing but weakness.

Mark well, however, that self-knowledge is indispensable, even for those whom God takes to dwell in the same mansion with Himself. Nothing else, however elevated, perfects the soul which must never seek to forget its own nothingness. Let humility be always at work, like the bee at the honeycomb, or all will be lost. But, remember, the bee leaves its hive to fly in search of flowers and the soul should sometimes cease thinking of itself to rise in meditation on the grandeur and majesty of its God. It will learn its own baseness better thus than by self-contemplation, and will be freer from the reptiles which enter the first room where self-knowledge is acquired.

Since this edifice is built entirely on humility, the closer one comes to God, the more progress there must be in this virtue; and if there is no progress in humility, everything is going to be ruined.

A soul that is hard because of self-love grows harder. O good Jesus, if you do not soften it, it will ever continue in its natural hardness.

It is a great school of humility to have to do continually things that cause great fatigue and that turn out very imperfect.

Let there be nothing we know of which it would be a service to the Lord for us to do, and which, with His help, we would not venture to take in hand. I should like that kind of venturesomeness to be found in this house, as it always increases humility. We must have a holy boldness, for God helps the strong, being no respecter of persons and He will give courage to you and to me.

For love is the genuine fruit of prayer when prayer is rooted in humility.

...the practice of these three things helps us to posses inwardly and outwardly the peace our Lord recommended so highly to us. The first of these is love for one another, the second is detachment from all created things; the third is true humility, which, even though I speak of it last, is the main practice and embraces all the others.

It is possible to remain little even in the most responsible position, and besides is it not written, that at the last day 'The Lord will arise and save the meek and lowly ones of the earth'?  He does not say 'to judge' but 'to save!'

Hence, don't pay any attention to the fears they raise or to the picture of the dangers they paint for you...Should anyone tell you that prayer is dangerous, consider him the real danger and run from him. Don't forget this counsel, for perhaps you will need it. There will be danger in not having humility and the other virtues. But that the way of prayer be a way of danger — God would never will that.  It seems the devil has invented these fears, and so he has been skillful, apparently, in making some who have practiced prayer fall away.

I imagine her passing by, so beautiful, so calm and so majestic, so absorbed in recollection of the Word of God within her. Like Him, her prayer was always this: "Ecce. Here I am." Who? "The servant of the Lord," the lowliest of His creatures: she, His Mother! Her humility was so real, for she was always forgetful of self, free from all anxiety.