Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.

How far have I to go to find you in whom I have already arrived.

Therefore, doing the Stations of the Cross was still more laborious than consoling, and required a sacrifice. It was much the same with all my devotions. They did not come easily or spontaneously, and they very seldom brought with them any strong sensible satisfaction. Nevertheless the work of performing them ended in a profound and fortifying peace: a peace that was scarcely perceptible, but which deepened and which, as my passions subsided, became more and more real, more and more sure, and finally stayed with me permanently.

The center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth.

How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?

Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.