Grace is necessary to salvation, free will equally so - but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.

If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. For a canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus communicates, without loss to itself, its superabundant water. In the Church at the present day, we have many canals, few reservoirs.

If anyone makes himself his own master in the spiritual life, he makes himself scholar to a fool.

Let us affectionately love His angels as counselors and defenders appointed by the Father and placed over us. They are faithful; they are prudent; they are powerful; Let us only follow them, let us remain close to them, and in the protection of the God of heaven let us abide.

Humility is, of all graces, the chiefest when it does not know itself to be a grace at all.

Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a sceptre but a hoe.

There are some who wish to learn for no other reason than that they may be looked upon as learned, which is ridiculous vanity ... Others desire to learn that they may morally instruct others, that is love. And, lastly, there are some who wish to learn that they may be themselves edified; and that is prudence.