The best thing must be to flee from all to the All.

What a miserable life is this! There is no happiness that is secure and nothing that does not change.

Be happy when you are blamed and accused wrongly, for then you have the chance to see all the bitter, hostile or self-pitying responses that your sinful soul wants to spew out - as if these puny things could in any way defend you! Watch and see if any of these poisons come out of you when your spirit is pricked by an accusation. Only then can you see yourself as you are, and confess thy sin that is within you and forsake yourself again into the Lord's care.

Those seeking the life of the spirit should be cheerful and free, and not neglect recreation. Married people must act in conformity with their vocation--but their progress will of necessity be but the pace of a hen.

Out of suffering comes the serious mind; out of salvation, the grateful heart; out of endurance, fortitude; out of deliverance faith. Patient endurance attends to all things.

I don't know what heavy penance could have come to mind that frequently I would not have gladly undertaken rather than recollect myself in the practice of prayer.

There is more security in self-denial, mortification, and other like virtues, than in an abundance of tears.