[I]t is His good pleasure that we remain always in the holy joy of His love.

If you no longer have any income, you will not be neglected-you will not starve to death. . . . We panic at first, but God does not always allow the evil that is feared to happen.

Make an effort to serve good bread and good meat and not to sell the better wine so as to serve what is inferior.

All comes at the proper time to him who knows how to wait.

Use gentle methods to get whatever good you can from priests and monks who are slaves, as well as from merchants and captives. Resort to severe measures only in extreme cases, for fear lest the hardship they are already enduring in their state of captivity, joined to the strictness you might want to exercise in virtue of your authority, drive them to despair. . . . It is not light they need, but strength, and strength permeates through the external balm of words and good example.

When in Rome, you must do as the Romans do and accept the local customs, if they are not immoral.

[E]ven if the whole world should rise up to destroy us, nothing will happen except that God, in whom we have put our hope, will allow.