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.
Teresa of AvilaI 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.
Teresa of AvilaWe should blush for shame to show so much resentment at what is done or said against us, knowing that so many injuries and affronts have been offered to our Redeemer and the saints.
Teresa of AvilaThe same know contentment, for beauty is their lover, and beauty is never absent from this world.
Teresa of AvilaI once heard a spiritual man say that he was not so much astonished at the things done by a soul in mortal sin as at the things not done by it. May God, in his mercy, deliver us from such great evil, for there is nothing in the whole of our lives that so thoroughly deserves to be called evil as this, since it brings endless and eternal evils in its train.
Teresa of Avila