Action is the normal completion of the act of will which begins as prayer. That action is not always external, but it is always some kind of effective energy.

A man is never so truly and intensely himself as when he is most possessed by God. It is impossible to say where, in the spiritual life, the human will leaves off and divine grace begins.

"This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better."

If we feel that any habit or pursuit, harmless in itself, is keeping us from God and sinking us deeper in the things of earth; if we find that things which others can do with impunity are for us the occasion of falling, then abstinence is our only course. Abstinence alone can recover for us the real value of what should have been for our help but which has been an occasion of falling. ... It is necessary that we should steadily resolve to give up anything that comes between ourselves and God.

Man will never be entirely willing to give up this world for the next nor the next world for this.

Don't get up from the feast of life without paying for your share of it.

Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.