Often when He comes, He finds the soul occupied. Other guests are there, and He has to turn away. He cannot gain entry, for we love and desire other things; therefore, His gifts, which He is offering to everyone unceasingly, must remain outside.

I never mingled with men, but I came home less of a man than I went out.

If we really want to achieve true prayer, we must turn our backs upon everything temporal, everything external, everything that is not divine.

Such sins, even if they do not kill all grace in us, do harm, nevertheless; and though they are only venial in themselves, they make us apt, ready, and inclined to lose grace and to fall into mortal sin.

Every one should find some suitable time, day or night, to sink into his depths, each according to his own fashion. Not every one is able to engage in contemplative prayer.

In the most intimate, hidden and innermost ground of the soul, God is always essentially, actively, and substantially present. Here the soul possesses everything by grace which God possesses by nature.

Rid yourself of anything that is not directed toward God.