We love the things we pretend to laugh at.

The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear.

Thinking prevents the unconscious from speaking.

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness.

The real hope is not in something we think we can do, but in God, who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see.

I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

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.