Alms
Preferring to store her money in the stomachs of the needy rather than hide it in a purse.
Apostolicity
The Church was founded upon Peter: although elsewhere the same is attributed to all the Apostles, and they all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The strength of the Church depends upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a head has been appointed, there may be no occasion for schism.
If one is not in the arc of Noah, he perishes in the reigning flood. (Journel, Enchiridion Patristicum, Herder, 1959, 494)
“If a soul is not clothed with the teachings of the Church he cannot merit to have Jesus seated in him.
Clericalism
Shun, as you would the plague, a cleric who from being poor has become wealthy, or who, from being nobody has become a celebrity.
Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.
Detraction
No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that you do not listen to it with pleasure.
The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by telling against ourselves.
Diligence
Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved.
No athlete is crowned but in the sweat of his brow.
Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies!
Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.
The tired ox treads with a firmer step.
Do not let your deeds belie your words, lest when you speak in church someone may say to himself, “Why do you not practice what you preach?”
Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.
Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied.
Begin now what you will be hereafter.
Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one's faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one's life.
The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it.
When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.
When I could not see the light with my blind eyes, I blamed not my eyes, but the sun.
If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.
Discretion
It is idle to play the lyre for an ass.
Drunkenness
Wine is the first weapon that devils use in attacking the young.
Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.
Fortitude
If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and forever in the next.
Friendship
A friend is long sought, hardly found, and with difficulty kept.
True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.
The friendship that can cease has never been real.
Gratuity
Love is not to be purchased, and affection has no price.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Ingorance
It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance.
Innocence
Malice swallows the greatest part of its own venom.
Failure is the inspiration of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.
What cannot be changed cannot be blamed.
Judgement
To perceive is to categorize, to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, to make decisions is to categorize.
Magnanimity
Small minds can never handle great themes.
Music
We need more music that is passionate and meaningful and honest.
Music to me is a voice, my voice, it’s my way of expressing what colours can I bring in, what emotions, what feel. What ideas can I bring out from these instruments that would make this song come alive.
Old Age
Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield.
Other-worldliness
Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.
Neither Britain, a land fertile in tyrants, nor the people of Ireland, knew Moses and the prophets.
The fact is that my native land is a prey to barbarism, that in it men’s only God is their belly, that they live only for the present, and that the richer a man is the holier he is held to be.
It is not being in Jerusalem, but living a good life there that is praiseworthy.
The Roman world is in collapse but we do not bend our neck.
Prayer
We must love Christ and always seek Christ's embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy.
When we pray we speak to God;
but when we read, God speaks to us.
It is our part to seek,
His to grant what we ask;
ours to make a beginning,
His to bring it to completion;
ours to offer what we can,
His to finish what we cannot.
To saints their very slumber is a prayer.
Nothing is hard for lovers, no labor is difficult for those who wish it.
My speech is too fast; my oration confused; love knows no order.
Love knows nothing of order.
No created mind, no created heart, no human force is capable of knowing how much love the Heart of Mary had for the Lord.
Providence
So valuable to heaven is the dignity of the human soul that every member of the human race has a guardian angel from the moment the person begins to be.
Scripture
Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.
The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the bottom.
Make knowledge of the Scripture your love... Live with them, meditate on them, make them the sole object of your knowledge and inquiries.
A false interpretation of Scripture causes that the Gospel of the Lord becomes the gospel of man, or, which is worse, a gospel of the devil.
A man who is well grounded in the testimonies of the Scripture is the bulwark of the Church.
Serenity
The enemy of reflection is the breakneck pace – the thousand pictures.
That rain is the best which falls steadily on the earth. A sudden and excessive downpour ruins the fields.
Shrewdness
The scars of others should teach us caution.
Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall into the same traps or nets twice.
The Sorrowful Mother
Even while living in the world, the heart of Mary was so filled with motherly tenderness and compassion for men that no-one ever suffered so much for their own pains, as Mary suffered for the pains of her children.
Tradition
The best advice that I can give you is this: Church-traditions- especially when they do not run counter to the faith- are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down... The traditions which have been handed down should be regarded as apostolic laws.
Transcendence
There are things in life that are bigger than ourselves. Life is short, live it well.
Veracity
Everything must have in it a sharp seasoning of truth.
Virginity
Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night.
Virginity can be lost by a thought.
And as regards Adam and Eve we must maintain that before the fall they were virgins in Paradise: but after they sinned, and were cast out of Paradise, they were immediately married.
If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is bad to touch a woman always and in every case.
Matrimony is always a vice, all that can be done is to excuse it and sanctify it; therefore it was made a religious sacrament.
Strictly speaking, one should not even rightly compare virginity to marriage because you cannot make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil.
I praise wedlock, I praise marital union, but only because they produce me virgins.
Marriage fills the Earth, virginity Heaven.
Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life.
Among us, what is not allowed to women is equally not allowed to men.
For the preservation of chastity, an empty and rumbling stomach and fevered lungs are indispensable.
“If a soul is not clothed with the teachings of the Church he cannot merit to have Jesus seated in him.
Clericalism
Shun, as you would the plague, a cleric who from being poor has become wealthy, or who, from being nobody has become a celebrity.
Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.
Detraction
No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that you do not listen to it with pleasure.
The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by telling against ourselves.
Diligence
Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved.
No athlete is crowned but in the sweat of his brow.
Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies!
Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.
The tired ox treads with a firmer step.
Do not let your deeds belie your words, lest when you speak in church someone may say to himself, “Why do you not practice what you preach?”
Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.
Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied.
Begin now what you will be hereafter.
Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one's faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one's life.
The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it.
When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.
When I could not see the light with my blind eyes, I blamed not my eyes, but the sun.
If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.
Discretion
It is idle to play the lyre for an ass.
Drunkenness
Wine is the first weapon that devils use in attacking the young.
Eucharist
If Christ did not want to dismiss the Jews without food in the desert for fear that they would collapse on the way, it was to teach us that it is dangerous to try to get to heaven without the Bread of Heaven.
Whoever eats the Lamb outside the House built by Christ on the chair of Peter is profane. (Journel, Enchiridion Patristicum, Herder, 1959, 494)
Without doubt, the Lord grants all favors which are asked of Him in Mass, provided they be fitting for us.
The Face
The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.
Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity.
If Christ did not want to dismiss the Jews without food in the desert for fear that they would collapse on the way, it was to teach us that it is dangerous to try to get to heaven without the Bread of Heaven.
Whoever eats the Lamb outside the House built by Christ on the chair of Peter is profane. (Journel, Enchiridion Patristicum, Herder, 1959, 494)
Without doubt, the Lord grants all favors which are asked of Him in Mass, provided they be fitting for us.
The Face
The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.
Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity.
Early impressions are hard to eradicate from the mind. When once wool has been dyed purple, who can restore it to its previous whiteness?
Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.
Fortitude
If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and forever in the next.
Friendship
A friend is long sought, hardly found, and with difficulty kept.
True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.
The friendship that can cease has never been real.
Gratuity
Love is not to be purchased, and affection has no price.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Ingorance
It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance.
Innocence
Malice swallows the greatest part of its own venom.
Failure is the inspiration of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.
What cannot be changed cannot be blamed.
Judgement
To perceive is to categorize, to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, to make decisions is to categorize.
Magnanimity
Small minds can never handle great themes.
Music
We need more music that is passionate and meaningful and honest.
Music to me is a voice, my voice, it’s my way of expressing what colours can I bring in, what emotions, what feel. What ideas can I bring out from these instruments that would make this song come alive.
Old Age
Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield.
Other-worldliness
Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.
Neither Britain, a land fertile in tyrants, nor the people of Ireland, knew Moses and the prophets.
The fact is that my native land is a prey to barbarism, that in it men’s only God is their belly, that they live only for the present, and that the richer a man is the holier he is held to be.
It is not being in Jerusalem, but living a good life there that is praiseworthy.
The Roman world is in collapse but we do not bend our neck.
Prayer
We must love Christ and always seek Christ's embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy.
When we pray we speak to God;
but when we read, God speaks to us.
It is our part to seek,
His to grant what we ask;
ours to make a beginning,
His to bring it to completion;
ours to offer what we can,
His to finish what we cannot.
To saints their very slumber is a prayer.
Nothing is hard for lovers, no labor is difficult for those who wish it.
My speech is too fast; my oration confused; love knows no order.
Love knows nothing of order.
No created mind, no created heart, no human force is capable of knowing how much love the Heart of Mary had for the Lord.
Providence
So valuable to heaven is the dignity of the human soul that every member of the human race has a guardian angel from the moment the person begins to be.
Scripture
Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.
The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the bottom.
Make knowledge of the Scripture your love... Live with them, meditate on them, make them the sole object of your knowledge and inquiries.
A false interpretation of Scripture causes that the Gospel of the Lord becomes the gospel of man, or, which is worse, a gospel of the devil.
A man who is well grounded in the testimonies of the Scripture is the bulwark of the Church.
Serenity
Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you.
No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon the sender of it.
Haste is of the Devil.
What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way.
What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way.
The enemy of reflection is the breakneck pace – the thousand pictures.
That rain is the best which falls steadily on the earth. A sudden and excessive downpour ruins the fields.
Shrewdness
The scars of others should teach us caution.
Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall into the same traps or nets twice.
The Sorrowful Mother
Even while living in the world, the heart of Mary was so filled with motherly tenderness and compassion for men that no-one ever suffered so much for their own pains, as Mary suffered for the pains of her children.
Tradition
The best advice that I can give you is this: Church-traditions- especially when they do not run counter to the faith- are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down... The traditions which have been handed down should be regarded as apostolic laws.
Transcendence
There are things in life that are bigger than ourselves. Life is short, live it well.
Veracity
Everything must have in it a sharp seasoning of truth.
Virginity
Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night.
Virginity can be lost by a thought.
And as regards Adam and Eve we must maintain that before the fall they were virgins in Paradise: but after they sinned, and were cast out of Paradise, they were immediately married.
If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is bad to touch a woman always and in every case.
Matrimony is always a vice, all that can be done is to excuse it and sanctify it; therefore it was made a religious sacrament.
Strictly speaking, one should not even rightly compare virginity to marriage because you cannot make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil.
I praise wedlock, I praise marital union, but only because they produce me virgins.
Marriage fills the Earth, virginity Heaven.
Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life.
Among us, what is not allowed to women is equally not allowed to men.
For the preservation of chastity, an empty and rumbling stomach and fevered lungs are indispensable.
Woman is the gate of the devil, the road to iniquity, the sting of the scorpion, in a word, a dangerous species.
Worldliness
Every day we are changing, every day we are dying, and yet we fancy ourselves eternal.
All riches come from iniquity, for unless one man loses another man cannot gain. Hence the common adage seems to me to be very true: The rich man is unjust, or he is heir to an unjust man.
A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts.
A vice in the heart is an idol on the altar.
It is no fault of Christianity that a hypocrite falls into sin.
They talk like angels but they live like men.
While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits upon evildoing.
Vanity is truly the motive power that moves humanity, and it is flattery that greases the wheels.
The line, often adopted by strong men in controversy, is justifying the means by the end.
When you believe you are excusing yourself, you are accusing yourself.
Worldliness
Every day we are changing, every day we are dying, and yet we fancy ourselves eternal.
All riches come from iniquity, for unless one man loses another man cannot gain. Hence the common adage seems to me to be very true: The rich man is unjust, or he is heir to an unjust man.
A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts.
A vice in the heart is an idol on the altar.
It is no fault of Christianity that a hypocrite falls into sin.
They talk like angels but they live like men.
While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits upon evildoing.
Vanity is truly the motive power that moves humanity, and it is flattery that greases the wheels.
The line, often adopted by strong men in controversy, is justifying the means by the end.
When you believe you are excusing yourself, you are accusing yourself.
They please the world most, who please Christ least.