I thank God for having given the Company subjects who belong more to Him than to themselves, and who serve the neighbor at the risk of their lives! They are like unrefined gold, which becomes visible in fire and which would otherwise remain hidden under ordinary actions and sometimes under faults and failings.

Charity is the cement which binds Communities to God and persons to one another . . .

I am the only wretch who keeps on heaping new iniquities and abominations on myself. O Monsieur, how merciful God is to put up with me with so much patience and forbearance, and how weak and miserable I am to abuse his mercies so greatly!

If God is the center of your life, no words are necessary. Your mere presence will touch hearts.

It is not light they need but strength, and strength permeates through the external balm of words and good example.

We should spend as much time in thanking God for his benefits as we do in asking him for them.

If, in order to succeed in an enterprise, I were obliged to choose between fifty deer commanded by a lion, and fifty lions commanded by a deer, I should consider myself more certain of success with the first group than with the second.