Words of Wisdom

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.

We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.

Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.

The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depends on our mortification of deeds of the flesh.

In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.

It is not the reading of many books which is necessary to make a man wise or good, but the well reading of a few, could he be sure to have the best.

The glories of the world are cheating shows, uncertain possessions, fading pleasures; and when they end, they leave the possessor worse than they find him.

Faith is the mother of all graces; it is the spring of motion in the spiritual life.

A God without dominion is no God.

To deny God as Creator is to deny Him as Redeemer.

Man proposes, but God disposes.

At the Day of Judgment we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done; not how eloquently we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.

He who would learn to pray, let him go to sea.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.

All men by nature desire to know.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Purity of heart is to will one thing.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.