A doctor who keeps a person from becoming ill deserves more merit than one who cures him.

He also always blesses humble beginnings much more than those accompanied by a lot of show.

Scorn both these evil suggestions and the wickedness of their author, who is the devil. Be very cheerful and humble yourself as much as you can. Ordinarily, God allows these things to happen to free us from some hidden pride and to engender in us holy humility.

But the blessed Bishop of Geneva taught his nuns another kind of prayer, which even the sick can make: to remain peacefully in the presence of God, manifesting our needs to Him with no other mental effort, like a poor person who uncovers his sores and by this means is more effective in inciting passers-by to do him some good than if he wore himself out trying to convince them of his need.

I have made to God the offering you made to me of your heart and have asked him to unite mine with yours in that of Our Lord.

Be acted upon rather than active. In this way, God will do through you alone what all men put together could not do without Him.

There is a vast difference between an Apostolic life and the solitude of the Carthusians. The latter is truly very holy but is not suited to those whom God has called to the former, which is in itself more excellent.