I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance - You, O God - towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matters.

In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.

Man has been naturally so created that it is advantageous for him to be submissive, but disastrous for him to follow his own will, and not the will of his creator.

For in our hope we are saved.

Nothing, therefore, happens unless the Omnipotent wills it to happen. He either permits it to happen, or He brings it about Himself.

You are my Lord, because You have no need of my goodness.

The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance. The mind commands the hand to move, and it so easy that one hardly distinguishes the order from its execution. Yet mind is mind and hand is body. The mind orders the mind to will. The recipient of the order is itself, yet it does not perform it.