How dry and hard you are without Jesus! How foolish and vain if you desire anything but him! Is it not a greater loss than losing the whole world? For what, without Jesus, can the world give you? Life without Him Is a relentless hell, but living with Him is a sweet paradise. If Jesus be with you, no enemy can harm you.
— Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
Endeavor to have always in your hand a pious book, that with this shield you may defend yourself against bad thoughts.
–Saint Jerome (c. 340-420)
No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon the sender of it.
–Saint Jerome (c. 340-420)
You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.
–Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)
I am not always faithful, but I never get discouraged. I abandon myself into the arms of Jesus and there I find again all that I have lost and much more besides.
–Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)
Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father’s love – difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens, her needs – everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness. Everything is a grace because everything is God’s gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events – to the heart that loves, all is well.
–Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)
