The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.

To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.

We should love others truly, for their own sakes rather than our own.

I answer that, Even, as in the blessed in heaven there will be most perfect charity, so in the damned there will be the most perfect hate.

Wonder [admiratio astonishment, marvel] is a kind of desire for knowledge. The situation arises when one sees an effect and does not know its cause, or when the cause of the particular effect is one that exceeds his power of understanding. Hence, wonder is a cause of pleasure insofar as there is annexed the hope of attaining understanding of that which one wants to know. ... For desire is especially aroused by the awareness of ignorance, and consequently a man takes the greatest pleasure in those things which he discovers for himself or learns from the ground up.

The servants of God...whether provoked by word or work, by keeping themselves tranquil and peaceful, evince a perfect nobleness of soul.

Beware of the person of one book.