Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half.

The history of the world suggests that without love of God there is little likelihood of a love for man that does not become corrupt.

There is no real elevation of mind in a contempt of little things; it is, on the contrary, from too narrow views that we consider those things of little importance which have in fact such extensive consequences.

Mankind, by the perverse depravity of their nature, esteem that which they have most desired as of no value the moment it is possessed, and torment themselves with fruitless wishes for that which is beyond their reach.

I believe that we are conforming to the divine order and the will of Providence when we are doing even indifferent things that belong to our condition.

Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others, as, by self-examination, thoroughly to know our own.

When we are truly in this interior simplicity our whole appearance is franker, more natural. This true simplicity. . . makes us conscious of a certain openness, gentleness, innocence, gaiety, and serenity. O, how amiable this simplicity is! Who will give it to me? I leave all for this. It is the pearl of the Gospel.