reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.

Goals are discovered, not made.

When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems.

In intellectual honesty, we should be willing to study and explore the spiritual life with all the rigor and determination we would give to any field of research.

I think of Pope Gregory the Great. He wanted the cloister. He wanted to pray and study, and yet he was thrust into this administrative job, and he submitted to that. And in that submission, he became a great leader. You could say that the only person who is safe to lead is the person who is free to submit.

Owning things is an obsession in our culture. If we own it, we feel we can control it; and if we control it, we feel it will give us more pleasure. The idea is an illusion.

To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to change. Resentments cannot be held with the same tenacity when we enter his gracious light.