Our piety must be weak and imperfect if it do not conquer our fear of death.

Simplicity is that grace which frees the soul from all unnecessary reflections upon itself.

True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words; for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then is to desire -- but to desire what God would have us desire. He who asks what he does not from the bottom of his heart desire, is mistaken in thinking that he prays.

There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.

Worry is the cross which we make for ourselves by over anxiety.

Faith is letting down our nets into the transparent deeps at the Divine command, not knowing what we shall draw.

The smallest things become great when God requires them of us; they are small only in themselves; they are always great when they are done for God.