Almsgiving above all else requires money, but even this shines with a brighter luster when the alms are given from our poverty. The widow who paid in the two mites was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all.

Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts

The slave should be resigned to his lot, in obeying his master he is obeying God.

When we once begin to form good resolutions, God gives us every opportunity of carrying them out.

The rich man is not one who is in possession of much, but one who gives much.

Intemperance is a hydra with a hundred heads. She never stalks abroad unaccompanied with impurity, anger, and the most infamous profligacies.

Do not the angels differs from us in this respect, that they do not want so many things as we do? Therefore the less we need, the more we are on our way to them; the more we need, the more we sink down to this perishable life.