Represent to yourself a dark city all burning and stinking with fire and brimstone. The damned are in the depth of hell within this woful city, where they suffer unspeakable torments in all their senses and members. Consider above all the eternity of their pains, which above all things makes hell intolerable.
Saint Francis de SalesMake friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you. Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.
Saint Francis de SalesThe enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished. Sometimes he even suggests the wish to undertake some excellent work that he foresees we will never accomplish. This is to distract us from the prosecution of some less excellent work that we would have easily completed. He does not care how many plans and beginnings we make, provided nothing is finished.
Saint Francis de SalesHe prays well who is so absorbed with God that he does not know he is praying.
Saint Francis de Sales