The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life-until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty.

Sin has made us stupid, so that we can only learn the hard way.

Only God is to be loved for His own sake. Everything else is to be loved for God's sake.

The big, blazing truth about man is that he has a heaven-sized hole in his heart, and nothing else can fill it. We pass our lives trying to fill the Grand Canyon with marbles. As Augustine said: Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.

Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time.

Sinners think they are saints, but saints know they are sinners.

The more we realize we are loved, the more ashamed we are not to love back. The more we sin as a violation of love, not just of law, the more powerful a motive we will have to overcome it. For sin is attractive to us (otherwise we would never be attracted to it) and can be cast out only by something more attractive.