We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of others and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.

A gentle sense of humor will be alert to detect anything that savors of a pious 'act' on the part of the penitent.

Our minds are like crows. They pick up everything that glitters, no matter how uncomfortable our nests get with all that metal in them.

One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendour that is all around us.

If you have love you will do all things well.

Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels that you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you are capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy.

Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our own lives in relation to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence.