It is better to say one Our Father fervently and devoutly than a thousand with no devotion and full of distraction.

-- St Edmund

How do you love yourself? Is your love a purely worldly one? If so you will desire always to abide here. But if your love for here is a heavenly love, you will desire, or at least be ready and glad, to depart hence when- soever it shall please the Lord.

-- St. Francis de Sales

Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear: ... And the king shall greatly desire thy beauty; for he is the Lord thy God, and him they shall adore.

-- Ps. xliv. 11, 12

It cannot be doubted that the poor can more easily attain the blessing of humility than those who are rich. In the case of the poor, the lack of worldly goods is often accompanied by a quiet gentleness, whereas the rich are more prone to arrogance. Nevertheless, many wealthy people are disposed to use their abundance not to swell their own pride but to perform works of benevolence. They consider their greatest gain what they spend to alleviate the distress of others. This virtue is open to all men, no matter what their class or condition, because all can be equal in their willingness to give, however unequal they may be in earthly fortune.

-- Pope St. Leo the Great

Charity is the sweet and holy bond which links the soul with its Creator: it binds God with man and man with God.

-- St. Catherine of Sienna

Have you begun to stop trying to defend your sins? Then you have made a beginning of righteousness!

-- St. Augustine

Can you expect to go to heaven for nothing? Did not our Savior track the whole way to it with His tears and blood? And yet you start at every little pain.

-- St. Elizabeth Ann Seton