We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.

God is not a deceiver, that He should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should slip away from us.

Be always displeased with what you are if you wish to be what you are not. Always add, always walk, always proceed. Neither stand still nor go back nor deviate.

If God is, why is there evil? But if God is not, why is there good?

Carnal lust rules where there is no love of God.

That one woman is both mother and virgin, not in spirit only but even in body. In spirit she is mother, not of our head, who is our Savior himself-of whom all, even she herself, are rightly called children of the bridegroom-but plainly she is the mother of us who are his members, because by love she has cooperated so that the faithful, who are the members of that head, might be born in the Church. In body, indeed, she is the Mother of that very head.

Divine Scripture is wont to frame, as it were, allurements for children from the things which are found in the creature; whereby, according to their measure, and as it were by steps, the affections of the weak may be moved to seek those things that are above, and to leave those things that are below. But the same Scripture rarely employs those things which are spoken properly of God, and are not found in any creature; as, for instance, that which was said to Moses, I am that I am; and, I Am has sent me to you."