You either belong wholly to the world or wholly to God.

-- St. John Vianney

Alms are an inheritance and a justice which is due to the poor and which Jesus has levied upon us.

-- St. Francis of Assisi

Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."

-- 1 Peter 1:13-16

In the remotest part of a wild and stony desert, burnt up with the heat of the scorching sun so that it frightens even the monks that inhabit it, I seemed to myself to be in the midst of the delights and crowds of Rome. In exile and prison to which for the fear of hell I had voluntarily condemned myself, I many times imagined myself witnessing the dancing of the Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them: in my cold body and in my parched-up flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion able to live. Alone with this enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and I tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks. I am not ashamed to disclose my temptations, but I grieve that I am not now what I then was.

-- From St. Jerome's letter to St. Eustochium

Mary "remained a virgin in conceiving her Son, a virgin in giving birth to him, a virgin in carrying him, a virgin in nursing him at her breast, always a virgin"

-- St. Augustine, Sermon 186

And when you have fulfilled in turn the duty of praise and of humility, then ask for what you ought to ask for; not for riches, not for the glory of this earth, not for health of body: for He made you and your health is in His care, and He knows which state is profitable to each one, to be healthy or to be infirm. He will provide for your body's needs.

-- St. Basil the Great

Chastity is the lily among virtues and makes men almost equal to angels.

-- St. Francis de Sales