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Life is long, and there are in it many trials, and we need to look at Christ our model, how He suffered them, and also at His apostles and saints, so as to bear these trials with perfection.

Let nothing disturb you, be it good or bad. Give up everything else except your peace of mind. When you feel restless, sad, sorrowful and embittered, look for the cause, and if it is not worth being sorry about (and nothing that does not offend God is worth being sorry about), get rid of your anxiety; if you do not see the causes but feel restless and dissatisfied all the same, put up with it, arm yourself with patience, let the storm pass, and your inner peace will return.

Faith is obscure knowledge; it thus leads us to knowledge of something, but this something we do not get to see. This is the reason why it must also be said that the end we attain by way of faith is also itself a night: God, even in ecstatic union, remains hidden to us on earth. The eye of our soul is absolutely unable to sustain His dazzling light for which it gropes as in a dark night.

Let us not desire delights daughters; we are well off here; the bad inn lasts only a night. Let us praise God; let us force ourselves to do penance in this life. How sweet will be the death of one who has done penance for all his sins, of one who won't have to go to purgatory!

The light of faith is like the light of the sun which blinds our eyes because its light is stronger than our powers of sight. So the light of faith transcends our comprehension.

If you give yourself to prayer, you will attain having God manifest Himself to you, and He will make you fall in love with Him.

Nothing goes well for me this year. But God is merciful when He burdens us with crosses.

If the Lord put up with someone as miserable as myself for so long a time...who, no matter how bad they may be, has reason to fear? For no matter how bad they may be, they will not be bad for as many years as I was after having received so many favors from the Lord. Who can lose confidence?

Fear nothing and be ever joyous...The love of God raises us above our weaknesses. It is He who renders us strong and intrepid.

For these are souls who, instead of committing themselves to God and making use of His help, rather hinder God by the indiscretion of their actions or by their resistance; like children who, when their mothers desire to carry them in their arms, start stamping and crying, and insist upon being allowed to walk, with the result that they can make no progress; and, if they advance at all, it is only at the pace of a child.

Vocal prayer . . . must be accompanied by reflection. A prayer in which a person is not aware of Whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of Whom, I don't call prayer-----however much the lips may move.

It is well known by experience that, when the will of a man is affectioned to one thing, he prizes it more than any other; although some other thing may be much better, he takes less pleasure in it. And if he wishes to enjoy both, he is bound to wrong the more important, because he makes an equality between them. Wherefore, since there is naught that equals God, the soul that loves some other thing together with Him, or clings to it, does Him a grievous wrong. And if this is so, what would it be doing if it loved anything more than God?