The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it.
-- Saint John of the Cross
If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.
Where there is no love, pour love in and you will draw love out.
In detachment, the spirit finds quiet and repose for coveting nothing.
To be taken with love for a soul, God does not look on its greatness, but the greatness of its humility.
The Lord measures our perfection neither by the multitude nor the magnitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we perform them.
I wish I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of perfection does not consist in many devices, nor in much cogitation, but in denying themselves completely and yielding themselves to suffer everything for the love of Christ.
Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.
O you souls who wish to go on with so much safety and consolation, if you knew how pleasing to God is suffering, and how much it helps in acquiring other good things, you would never seek consolation in anything; but you would rather look upon it as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord.
In giving us His Son, His only Word, He spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word -- and He has no more to say ... because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son.
God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than all the works you can perform.
With what procrastinations do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart?
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