O Monsieur de Sergis, how important a matter is submission of spirit to a superior!

... I am sure that you are the first to do what you teach them.

I know well, Monsieur, how much you have to endure in your present duty, and I ask Our Lord to strengthen you in your difficulties. It is in such circumstances that we acquire virtue; where there is no suffering, there is little merit. My wish is that God may grant us great indifference with regard to duties. O Monsieur, how sure we would then be of doing His Holy Will, which is our sole aspiration, and how much peace and contentment we would enjoy, or so it seems to me!

God has seen fit that, since our services are useful to many persons, everyone approves them, but only when they are carried out in the spirit of Our Lord.

Laws must never be made compatible with crimes, no more than lying should be in harmony with the truth.

People are made in such a way that even the holiest ones are liable to offend one another.

Just as stinginess is blameworthy, so is facility in paying more for things than they are worth...