In the first day of my youth I tried to find it in the creatures, as I saw others do: but the more I sought, the less I found it, and the nearer I went to it, the further off it was. For of every image that appeared to me, before I had fully tested it, or abandoned myself to peace in it, and inner voice said to me: 'This is not what thou seekest.

After big storms there follow bright days.

Suffering is the ancient law of love; there is no quest without pain; there is no lover who is not also a martyr.

It is inner abandonment that leads men to the highest truth.

I have often repented of having spoken. I have never repented of silence.

By ignorance the truth is known.

Remember that you will derive strength by reflecting that the saints yearn for you to join their ranks; desire to see you fight bravely, and that you behave like true knights in your encounters with the same adversities which they had to conquer, and that breathtaking joy is theirs and your eternal reward for having endured a few years of temporal pain. Every drop of earthly bitterness will be changed into an ocean of heavenly sweetness.