The less of self and self-will there is in anything we do, the better. You must not amuse yourself with going from side to side, when duty calls you straight on; nor make difficulties, when the real thing is to get over them. Let your heart be full of courage, and then say, “I shall succeed. Not I, but the grace of God which is with me.”
— Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.
— John Newton (1725-1807)
We are only that which we are before God.
–Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)
Those who want to perfect the works of God should always attend to the fact that they are fragile vessels, for they are human beings, and they should look at what they are and what they will be… and in their characteristics they are like simple children.
–Saint Hildegarde of Bingen (1098-1179)
Together with the grace of suffering, spiritual tempests bring the grace of humility, a new, deep humility that hollows out in the soul a void so immense that God fits into it.
–Luis M. Martinez (1881-1956)
Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing. This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life. Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people.
–Saint Theophane the Recluse (1815-1894)
