When the soul, through its own fault... becomes rooted in a pool of pitch-black, evil smelling water, it produces nothing but misery and filth.

I fully realize that this gratitude of mine is not in the least a sign of perfection: it must be my nature - I could be suborned with a sardine.

From silly devotions and from sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us.

Before prayer, endeavour to realise Whose Presence you are approaching and to Whom you are about to speak, keeping in mind Whom you are addressing. If our lives were a thousand times as long as they are we should never fully understand how we ought to behave towards God, before Whom the very Angels tremble, Who can do all He wills, and with Whom to wish is to accomplish.

True love grows by sacrifice and the more thoroughly the soul rejects natural satisfaction the stronger and more detached its tenderness becomes.

O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it.

The soul of the just man is but a paradise, in which, God tells us, He takes His delight. What do you imagine, must that dwelling be in which a King so mighty, so wise, and so pure, containing in Himself all good, can delight to rest? Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God, for, as He told us, He created us in his own image and likeness.