The only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing.

We never know how strongly we cling to objects until they are taken away, and he who thinks htat he is attached to nothing, is frequently grandly mistaken, being bound to a thousand things, unknown to himself.

All consolation that does not come from God is but desolation; when the soul has learned to receive no comfort but in God only, it has passed beyond the reach of desolation.

O my God, how true it is that we may have of Thy gifts and yet may be full of ourselves!

How can they be delivered from the life of self, who are not willing to abandon all their possessions? How can they believe themselves despoiled of all, who possess the greatest treasure under heaven? Do not oblige me to name it, but judge, if you are enlightened; there is one of them which is less than the other, which is lost before it, but which those who must lose everything have the greatest trouble in parting with.

In your occupations, try to possess your soul in peace. It is not a good plan to be in haste to perform any action that it may be sooner over. On the contrary, you should accustom yourself to do whatever you have to do with tranquility, in order that you may retain the possession of yourself and of settled peace.

Self-seeking is the gate by which a soul departs from peace; and total abandonment to the will of God, that by which it returns.