To pray is to desire; but it is to desire what God would have us desire.

There were some who said that a man at the point of death was more free than all others, because death breaks every bond, and over the dead the united world has no power.

How dangerous it is for our salvation, how unworthy of God and of ourselves, how pernicious even for the peace of our hearts, to want always to stay where we are! Our whole life was only given us to advance us by great strides toward our heavenly country.

The past but lives in written words: a thousand ages were blank if books had not evoked their ghosts, and kept the pale unbodied shades to warn us from fleshless lips.

The youth who, like a woman, loves to adorn his person, has renounced all claim to wisdom and to glory; glory is due to those only who dare to associate with pain, and have trampled pleasure under their feet.

It is better to die than to tell a lie

To be faithful in prayer it is indispensable that we arrange all the activities of the day with a regularity that nothing can disturb