God does not require of us extraordinary things.

-- The Cure of Ars

The soul united to God and transformed in him draws from within God a divine breath, much like the most high God himself. And God, abiding in the soul, breathes forth the life of the soul as its exemplar. This I take to be what Paul meant when he said: because you are children of God, God has sent to the Spirit of his Son into your heart's crying, Abba, Father; this is what takes place in those who have achieved perfection.

-- St. John of the Cross

The love of worldly possessions is a sort of bird line, which entangles the soul, and prevents it flying to God.

-- St. Augustine

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.

-- Saint Joseph Calasanz

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.

-- St. Pio of Pietrelcina

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.

-- St. Augustine

It is to those who have the most need of us that we ought to show our love more especially.

-- St. Francis de Sales

Love the poor tenderly, regarding them as your masters and yourselves as their servants.

-- St. John of God

But a soul that does not live by the love of God suffers in a different way. It is not happy because it does not correspond generously enough to divine love; it hears a call and feels an attraction to which it does not respond. God punishes it by preventing it from being at peace in the quiet of laziness which it creates for itself. How many times is God sent away in this manner!

-- St. Peter Emyard

It is better for a man to be silent and be [a Christian], than to talk and not to be one. It is good to teach, if he who speaks also acts. There is then one Teacher, who spake and it was done; while even those things which He did in silence are worthy of the Father. He who possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to hear even His very silence, that he may be perfect, and may both act as he speaks, and be recognised by his silence.

-- St. Ignatius

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 angles tremble.

-- St. Teresa of Avila

Every virtue in your soul is a precious ornament which makes you dear to God and to man. But holy purity, the queen of virtues, the angelic virtue, is a jewel so precious that those who possess it become like the angels of God in Heaven, even though clothed in mortal flesh.

-- St. John Bosco

True devotion hinders no one, but rather it perfects everything, and whenever it is out of keeping with any person's legitimate vocation, it must be spurious.

-- St. Francis de Sales

Sorrow is given us on purpose to cure us of sin.

-- St. John Chrysostom

The everlasting God has in His wisdom, foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost heart. This cross He now sends you, He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His Divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with His loving arms and weighed with His own hands, to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God. Our business is to love what would have done. He wills our vocation as it is. Let us love that and not trifle away our time hankering after other people's vocations.

-- St. Francis de Sales

True charity consists in doing good to those who do us evil, and in thus winning them over.

-- St. Alphonsus Liguori