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

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.

I hope that this man can be won over by your bearing charitably with him, advising him prudently, and praying for him. This is what I do for your family in general and for you in particular.

[P]resent misfortune presupposes good luck in the future.

There is nothing good that does not meet with opposition, and it should not be valued any less because it encounters objections.

His Divine Goodness asks that we never do good in any place to make ourselves look important but that we always consider Him directly, immediately, and without intermediary in all our actions.

Experience teaches that what is feasible at the beginning is sometimes harmful as things go on, or subject to troublesome inconveniences