"Remember that you will derive strength by reflecting that the saints yearn for you to join their ranks; desire to see you fight bravely, and that you behave like true knights in your encounters with the same adversities which they had to conquer, and that breathtaking joy is theirs and your eternal reward for having endured a few years of temporal pain. Every drop of earthly bitterness will be changed into an ocean of heavenly sweetness." 1St. Henry Suso
"What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He Caresses us, and to be cold immediately once He afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all their heart." 2
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
"What is impossible to God? Not that which is difficult to His power, but that which is contrary to His nature." 3
St. Ambrose of Milan
"Mental prayer is nothing else but being on terms of friendship with God, frequently conversing in secret with Him." 4
St. Teresa of Avila
"Imagine your anger to be a kind of wild beast, because it has ferocious teeth and claws, and if you don't tame it, it will devastate all things even corrupting the soul." 5
St. John Chrysostom
"Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent." 6
St. John of the Cross
"God overthrows the thrones of those who are disobedient to His law. My political views are those of the Our Father." 7
St. Avitus of Vienna
"They say, "God told me", or "God replied to me". And yet most of the time they are talking to themselves." 8
St. John of the Cross
"The more we are afflicted in this world, the greater is our assurance in the next; the more we sorrow in the present, the greater will be our joy in the future." 9
St. Isidore of Seville
"It is true that God's power triumphs over everything, but humble and suffering prayer prevails over God Himself." 10
St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
"In the same way that a powerful medicine cures an illness, so illness itself is a medicine to cure passion. And there is much profit of soul in bearing illness quietly and giving thanks to God." 11
St. Amma Syncletice
"When it is all over you will not regret having suffered; rather you will regret having suffered so little, and suffered that little so badly." 12
St. Sebastian Valfre
"Is it not true that your gloominess and bad temper are due to your lack of determination in breaking the subtle snares laid by your own disordered desires? The daily examination of conscience is an indispensible help if we are to follow our Lord with sincerity of heart and integrity of life." 13
St. Jose Maria Escriva'
"The saints were so completely dead to themselves they cared very little whether others agreed with then or not!" 14
St. John Vianney
"Though perseverance does not come from our power, yet it comes from within our power." 15
St. Francis DeSales
"And of what should we be afraid? Our captain on this battlefield is Christ Jesus. We have discovered what we have to do. Christ has bound our enemies for us and weakened them that they cannot overcome us unless we so choose to let them. So we must fight courageously and mark ourselves with the sign of the most Holy Cross." 16
St. Catherine of Sienna
"God never deserts a man, unless He is deserted by that man first. For even if a man shall have committed grievous sins once, twice, and a third time, God still looks for him, "so that he may be converted and live." 17
St. Caesarius of Arles
"Until we have acquired genuine prayer, we are like people teaching children to begin to walk." 18
St. Margaret Mary Alocoque
"There are three distinct comings of the Lord of which I know: His coming to men, His coming into men, and His coming against men." 19
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
"The one who is our very Life descended into our world, and bore our death, and slew it with the abundance of His own life. Thundering, He called out to us to return to Him in heaven." 20
St. Augustine
"Hold firmly that our faith is identical with the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church." 21
St. Thomas Aquinas
"Every morning you put on your clothes to cover your nakedness and protect your body from inclement weather. Why don't you also clothe your soul with the garment of faith? Remember each morning the truths of your creed, and look at yourself in the mirror of your faith. Otherwise, your soul will soon be naked with the nakedness of oblivion." 22
St. Augustine
"If only mortals would learn how great it is to possess divine grace, how beautiful, how noble, how precious. How many riches it hides within itself, how many joys and delights! No one would complain about his cross or about troubles that may happen to him, if he would come to know the scales on which they are weighed when they are distributed to men." 23
St. Rose of Lima
"When the Holy Rosary is said well, it gives Jesus and Mary more glory and is more meritorious than any other prayer." 24
St. Louis de Montfort
"Blood that but one drop of has the power to win.......All the world forgiveness of its world of sin." 25
St. Thomas Aquinas
"Moreover the strongest support is provided not only to protect the young from evil, but also to rouse them and attract them more easily and gently to the performance of good works. Like the twigs of plants, the young are easily influenced, as long as someone works to change their souls. But if they are allowed to grow hard, we know well that the possibility of one day bending them diminishes a great deal and is sometimes utterly lost." 26
St. Joseph Calasanz
"Christ does not force our will, He only takes what we give Him. But He does not give Himself entirely until He sees that we yield ourselves entirely to Him." 27
St Teresa of Avila
"The measure of charity may be taken from the want of desires. As desires diminish in the soul, charity increases in it; and when it no longer feels any desire, then it possesses perfect charity." 28
St. Augustine
"It is to those who have the most need of us that we ought to show our love more especially." 29
St. Francis de Sales
"Love the poor tenderly, regarding them as your masters and yourselves as their servants." 30
St. John of God
"Before prayer, endeavor to realize whose Presence you are approaching, and to whom you are about to speak. We can never fully understand how we ought to behave towards God, before whom the angels tremble." 31
St. Teresa of Avila
"True charity consists in doing good to those who do us evil, and in thus winning them over." 32
St. Alphonsus Liguori
"You go to pray; to become a bonfire, a living flame, giving light and heat." 33
St Josemaria Escriva
"After you have made a decision that is pleasing to God, the Devil may try to make you have second thoughts. Intensify your prayer time, meditation, and good deeds. For if Satan's temptations merely cause you to increase your efforts to grow in holiness, he'll have an incentive to leave you alone." 34
St. Ignatius of Loyola
"He who does not meditate acts as one who never looks into the mirror and so does not bother to put himself in order, since he can be dirty without knowing it. The person who meditates and turns his thoughts to God who is the mirror of the soul, seeks to know his defects and tries to correct them, moderates himself in his impulses and puts his conscience in order." 35
St.Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
"The love of talk distracts all the powers of our soul from God, and fills them with earthly objects and impressions, like a vessel of water that cannot be settled while you are continualy stirring the earthly particles from the bottom." 36
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
"You should never praise anyone until you see how he turns out in the end!" 37
St. Francis of Assisi
"The purest suffering bears and carries in its train the purest understanding." 38
St. John of the Cross
"Christ does not force our will, He only takes what we give Him. But He does not give Himself entirely until He sees that we yield ourselves entirely to Him." 39
St. Teresa of Avila
"In order to avoid discord, never contradict anyone except in case of sin or some danger to a neighbor; and when necessary to contradict others, do it with tact and not with temper." 40
St. Louis IX
"You strayed from the way and did not return because you were ashamed. It would be more logical if you were ashamed not to return." 41
St. Josemaria Escriva
"Trials and tribulations offer us a chance to make reparation for our past faults and sins. On such occasions the Lord comes to us like a physician to heal the wounds left by our sins. Tribulation is the divine medicine." 42
St. Augustine of Hippo
"We must often draw the comparison between time and eternity. This is the remedy of all our troubles. How small will the present moment appear when we enter that great ocean." 43
St. Elizebeth Ann Seton
"Nothing is sweeter than the calm of conscience, nothing safer than purity of soul - yet no one can bestow this on himself because it is properly the gift of God's grace." 44
St. Columban
"Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul, except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry." 45
St. Francis de Sales
"The affairs of God are accomplished little by little and almost imperceptibly. The Spirit of God is neither violent nor hasty. He does all things in His time." 46
St. Vincent de Paul
"You don't love in your enemies what they are, but what you would have them become by your prayers." 47
St. Augustine of Hippo
"If you embrace all things in this life as coming from the hands of God, and even embrace death to fulfill His holy will, assuredly you will die a saint." 48
St. Alphonsus Liguori
"The Devil never runs upon a man to seize him with his claws until he sees him on the ground, already having fallen by his own will." 49
St. Thomas More
"Remember that the Christian life is one of action; not of speech and daydreams. Let there be few words and many deeds, and let them be done well." 50
St. Vincent Pallotti
"In times of desolation, God conceals Himself from us so that we can discover for ourselves what we are without Him." 51
St. Margaret of Cortona
"We ought not, as soon as we leave church, to plunge into business unsuited to church, but as soon as we get home, we should take the Scriptures into our hands, and call our wife and children to join us in putting together what we have heard in church." 52
St John Chrysostom
"Everything seems to me to pass so quickly that we must concentrate on how to die rather than on how to live. How sweet it is to die if one has lived on the Cross with Christ." 53
St. Teresa of Avila
"A Christian is not his own master, since all his time belongs to God." 54
St. Ignatius of Antioch
"No idle word should be uttered. I understand a word to be idle when it serves no good purpose, either for myself or for another, and was not intended to do so." 55
St. Ignatius of Loyola
"The highest degree of meekness consists in seeing, serving, honoring, and treating amiably, on occasion, those who are not to our taste, and who show themselves unfriendly, ungrateful, and troublesome to us." 56
St. Francis de Sales
"We must acknowledge that God is happiness itself or we will never know what true happiness is!" 57
St. Servinus
"There is no danger if our prayer is without words or reflection because the good success of prayer depends neither on words nor on study. It depends upon the simple raising of our minds to God, and the more simple and stripped of feeling it is, the surer it is." 58
St. Jane Frances de Chantal
"The soul that journey's to God, but doesn't shake off it's cares and quiet it's appetities, is like someone who drags a cart of dirt uphill." 59
St. John of the Cross
"What does it cost us to say: "My God help me! Have mercy on me!" Is there anything easier than this? And this little will suffice to save us if we be diligent in doing it." 60
St. Alphonsus Liguori
"O my soul, what are you doing? Are you not aware that God sees you always? You can never hide yourself from His sight. O Father, have pity on us because we are blind and in darkness. Drive out the darkness and give me light. Melt the ice of my self-love and kindle in me the fire of Your charity." 61
St. Catherine of Siena
"It is loving the Cross that one finds one heart, for Divine Love cannot live without suffering." 62
St. Bernadette
"If something uncharitable is said in your presence, either speak in favor of the absent, or withdraw, or if possible stop the conversation." 63
St. John Vianney
"Don't give in to discouragement. If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers. Never bother about people's opinions. Be obedient to truth. For with humble obedience, you will never be disturbed." 64
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
"You don't know how to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and as soon as you have said, 'Lord, I don't know how to pray!" you can be sure you have already begun.'" 65
St. Josemaria Escriva
"No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all." 66
St John Chrysostom
"Highest Providence often works a wonderful miracle: that of having evil men make others who are evil to become good." 67
St. Severinus
"We are at Jesus' disposal. If he wants you to be sick in bed, if he wants you to proclaim His work in the street, if he wants you to clean the toilets all day, that's all right, everything is all right. We must say, "I belong to you. You can do whatever you like." And this ..is our strength, and this is the joy of the Lord." 68
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
"It's true he was a sinner. But don't pass so final a judgement. Have pity in your heart and don't forget that he may yet be an Augustine, while you remain just another mediocrity." 69
St. Josémaria Escriva
"Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross." 70
St. John of the Cross
"The wicked exist in this world either to be converted or that through them the good may exercise patience." 71
St. Augustine
"The way to Heaven is straight and narrow: they who wish to arrive at that place of bliss by walking in the paths of pleasure shall be disappointed; and therefore few reach it, because few are willing to use violence to themselves in resisting temptations." 72
St. Alphonsus Liguori
"It is certain that the love of God does not consist in this sweetness and tenderness which we for the most part desire; but rather in serving Him in justice, fortitude, and humility. His Majesty seeks and loves courageous souls." 73
St. Teresa of Avila
"Never rise from the table without having given thanks to the Lord. If we act in this way we need have no fear of the wretched sin of gluttony." 74
St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
"We do not have to talk very much in order to pray well. We know that God is there in His holy tabernacle; let us open our hearts to Him; let us rejoice in His Presence: This is the best prayer." 75
St. John Vianney
"Who teaches the soul if not God?" 76
Saint John of the Cross
"There is no sin or wrong that gives a man a foretaste of hell in this life as anger and impatience." 77
St.Catherine of Sienna
"It is blasphemy if you pray before God while you are full of anger." 78
St. Ephraem the Syrian
"A Christian has a union with Jesus Christ more noble, more intimate and more perfect than the members of a human body have with their head." 79
St. John Eudes
"All our religion is but a false religion, and all our virtues are mere illusions and we ourselves are only hypocrites in the sight of God, if we have not that universal charity for everyone - for the good, and for the bad, for the poor and for the rich, and for all those who do us harm as much as those who do us good." 80
St. John Vianney
"Here is one of the best means to acquire humility; fix well in mind this maxim: One is as much as he is in the sight of God, and no more." 81
St. Francis of Assisi
"Many would be willing to have afflictions provided that they not be inconvenienced by them." 82
St. Francis de Sales
"The bread you store up belongs to the hungry; the cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; the gold you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor." 83
St. Basil the Great
"The rich man who gives to the poor does not bestow alms but pays a debt." 84
St. Ambrose of Milan
"It would be considered a theft on our part if we didn't give to someone in greater need than we are." 85
St. Francis of Assisi
"I bind to myself today the power in the love of the Seraphim, in the obedience of the Angels, in the ministration of the Archangels, in the hope of Resurrection unto reward, in the prayers of the Patriarchs, in the predictions of the Prophets, in the preaching of the Apostles, in the faith of the Confessors, in the purity of the holy Virgins, in the deeds of Righteous men." 86
St. Patrick of Ireland
"If I had to advise parents, I should tell them to take great care about the people with whom their children associate . . . Much harm may result from bad company, and we are inclined by nature to follow what is worse than what is better." 87
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
"The Lord was Baptized, not to be cleansed Himself, but to cleanse the waters, so that those waters, cleansed by the flesh of Christ which knew no sin, might have the power of Baptism." 88
St. Ambrose of Milan
"Christ has made my soul beautiful with the jewels of grace and virtue. I belong to Him Whom the Angels serve." 89
St. Agnes
"Never read books you aren't sure about . . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" 90
St. John Bosco
"You can do nothing with children unless you win their confidence and love by bringing them into touch with yourself, by breaking through all the hindrances that keep them at a distance. We must accommodate ourselves to their tastes, we must make ourselves like them." 91
St. John Bosco
"When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about peace, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking of Christ." 92
St. Ambrose of Milan
"What do they not see, who see Him Who sees all things?" 93
Pope St. Gregory the Great
"The greater the charity of the Saints in their heavenly home, the more they intercede for those who are still on their journey and the more they can help them by their prayers; the more they are united with God, the more effective those prayers are. This is in accordance with Divine order, which makes higher things react upon lower things, like the brightness of the sun filling the atmosphere." 94
St. Thomas Aquinas
"Confession heals, confession justifies, confession grants pardon of sin, all hope consists in confession; in confession there is a chance for mercy." 95
St. Isidore of Seville
"Go to your confessor; open your heart to him; display to him all the recesses of your soul; take the advice that he will give you with the utmost humility and simplicity. For God, Who has an infinite love for obedience, frequently renders profitable the counsels we take from others, but especially from those who are the guides of our souls." 96
St. Francis de Sales
"God desires from you the least degree of purity of conscience more than all the works you can perform." 97
St. John of the Cross
"The greatness of contemplation can be given to none but those who love." 98
Pope St. Gregory the Great
"There are in truth three states of the converted: the beginning, the middle, and the perfection. In the beginning they experience the charms of sweetness; in the middle the contests of temptation; and in the end the fullness of perfection." 99
Pope St. Gregory the Great
"The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them." 100
St. Thomas Aquinas
