Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
Let the Lord your God be your hope – seek for nothing else from him, but let him himself be your hope. There are people who hope from him riches or perishable and transitory honors, in short they hope to get from God things which are not God himself.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
The contemplative life is an intimate affair; it is a loving conversation of man with God. But in order that God may speak to the soul and the soul speak with God, it is necessary that there be silence.
–Luis M. Martinez (1881-1956)
Silence is not only the indispensable condition for the development of the interior life, but it is also a sign of the maturity of virtue. When the interior life reaches a certain degree of development, it is marked by silence. In the beginning, we have some difficulty in speaking with God, but as our intimacy with God increases, our conversation with Him becomes easier, because His love provokes an inexhaustible source of loving words in our innermost soul. If this love continues growing until it reaches a certain degree, if our friendship with Jesus becomes more intimate and perfect, then words begin to fail us, because they seem impotent to express the sentiments of our heart. Little by little, words disappear, and our communication with God becomes the divine communication of silence.
–Luis M. Martinez (1881-1956)
The light that true knowledge gives out is the ability to distinguish unerringly what is right from what is wrong. This being so, the path of uprightness – which leads the mind towards God, the radiant sun of righteousness – takes that same mind into an unbounded light of knowledge and then leads it on to seek trustingly for love.
–Saint Diadochus of Photike (c. 400 – c. 486)
Gratitude is the mother of all virtues; ingratitude is the sin most offensive to Heaven.
–Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)
