The soul hardly ever realizes it, but whether he is a believer or not, his loneliness is really a homesickness for God.
Peace comes not by establishing a calm outward setting so much as by inwardly surrendering to whatever the setting.
If you do not pray, everything can disappoint you by going wrong. If you do pray, everything can still go wrong, but not in a way that will disappoint you.
Do I want to pray or only to think about my human problems? Do I want to pray or simply kneel there contemplating my sorrow? Do I want to direct my prayer toward God or let it direct itself towards me?
Love and sacrifice are not the same thing, but they are inseparable. To think of Christ and to think of the Cross is not the same thing, but the association is so close that the implication is immediate. Where love has been preached without sacrifice, it has not led to love but to license.
It is in the highest interests of the devil to persuade the world that religious people are disagreeable.
Friends, suffering, marriage, environment, study and recreation are influence which shape character. The strongest influence, if you are generous enough to yield to it, is the grace of God.
A lot of trouble about prayer would disappear if only we realized - really realized - that we go to pray not because we love prayer, but because we love God.
Thinking about interior peace destroys interior peace. The patient who constantly feels his pulse is not getting any better.
Anyt hing that is found to stimulate hope should be seized upon and make to serve. This applies to a book, a film, a broadcast, or a conversation with someone who can impart it.
The patients who constantly feel their pulse are not getting any better.