He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand.

Whatever he says, let his inner resolution be not to bear whatever comes to him, but to bear it 'for a reasonable period'--and let the reasonable period be shorter than the trial is likely to last. It need not be much shorter; in attacks on patience, chastity, and fortitude, the fun is to make the man yield just when (had he but known it) relief was almost in sight.

Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.

There is something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there's also something in it which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly. Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is. And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what ye call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefor, when it falls, a fiercer devil.

If education is beaten by training, civilization dies.

Through pride the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every vice, it's the complete anti-God state of mind.

It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.