This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"A Faint Music - Maybe you need to write a poem about grace. When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears. As in the story a friend told once about the time he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him. Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash. He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge, the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon. And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,” that there was something faintly ridiculous about it. No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perch he’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass, scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelp along the coast—and he realized that the reason for the word was crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwise the restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs, and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled up on the girder like a child—the sun was going down and he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jacket he’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railing carefully, and drove home to an empty house. There was a pair of her lemon yellow panties hanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed. A faint russet in the crotch that made him sick with rage and grief. He knew more or less where she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill. They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tears in her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,” she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights, a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay. “You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?” “Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now, “I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while— Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall— and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more, and go to sleep. And he, he would play that scene once only, once and a half, and tell himself that he was going to carry it for a very long time and that there was nothing he could do but carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listened to the forest in the summer dark, madrone bark cracking and curling as the cold came up. It’s not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,” which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing." - Robert Hass, aka The Bard of Berkeley
"When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears." - Robert Hass, aka The Bard of Berkeley
"It's good the great green earth to roam, Where sights of awe the soul inspire; But oh, it's best, the coming home, The crackle of one's own hearth-fire! You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past; You've seen the pageantry of kings; Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last The peace and rest of Little Things! Perhaps you're counted with the Great; You strain and strive with mighty men; Your hand is on the helm of State; Colossus-like you stride . . . and then There comes a pause, a shining hour, A dog that leaps, a hand that clings: O Titan, turn from pomp and power; Give all your heart to Little Things. Go couch you childwise in the grass, Believing it's some jungle strange, Where mighty monsters peer and pass, Where beetles roam and spiders range. 'Mid gloom and gleam of leaf and blade, What dragons rasp their painted wings! O magic world of shine and shade! O beauty land of Little Things! I sometimes wonder, after all, Amid this tangled web of fate, If what is great may not be small, And what is small may not be great. So wondering I go my way, Yet in my heart contentment sings . . . O may I ever see, I pray, God's grace and love in Little Things. So give to me, I only beg, A little roof to call my own, A little cider in the keg, A little meat upon the bone; A little garden by the sea, A little boat that dips and swings . . . Take wealth, take fame, but leave to me, O Lord of Life, just Little Things." - Robert Service, fully Robert William Service
"My mind to me an empire is, While grace affordeth health. " - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
"Repentant eyes are the cellars of angels, and penitent tears their sweetest wines, which the savor of life perfumeth, the taste of grace sweeteneth, and the purest colors of returning innocency highly beautifieth. This dew of devotion never falleth, but the sun of justice draweth it up, and upon what face soever it droppeth it maketh it amiable in God's eye.... No, no, the angels must still bathe themselves in the pure streams of thy eyes, and thy face shall still be set with this liquid pearl, that as out of thy tears were stroken the first sparks of thy Lord's love, so thy tears may be the oil, to nourish and feed his flame. Till death dam up the springs, they shall never cease running: and then shall thy soul be ferried in them to the harbor of life, that as by them it was first passed from sin to grace, so in them it may be wafted from grace to glory." - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
"After prayer, on working days, I must go presently about some work or exercise that may be of some profit, and of all other things take heed of idleness, the mother of all vices. Towards eleven (if company and other more weighty causes will permit) I may meditate a little and call to mind how I have spent the morning, asking God grace to spend the afternoon better." - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
"Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights, A brief wherein all marvels summèd lie, Of fairest forms and sweetest shapes the store, Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more." - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
"My conscience is my crown, Contented thoughts my rest; My heart is happy in itself, My bliss is in my breast... Enough I reckon wealth; A mean the surest lot, That lies too high for base contempt, Too low for envy's shot... I feel no care of coin, Well-doing is my wealth; My mind to me an empire is, While grace affordeth health... rise by others' fall I deem a losing gain; All states with others' ruins built To ruin run amain... Fortune smiles, I smile to think How quickly she will frown." - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
"Look home - Retirëd thoughts enjoy their own delights, As beauty doth in self-beholding eye ; Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights, A brief wherein all marvels summëd lie, Of fairest forms and sweetest shapes the store, Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more. The mind a creature is, yet can create, To nature's patterns adding higher skill ; Of finest works with better could the state If force of wit had equal power of will. Device of man in working hath no end, What thought can think, another thought can mend. Man's soul of endless beauty image is, Drawn by the work of endless skill and might ; This skillful might gave many sparks of bliss And, to discern this bliss, a native light ; To frame God's image as his worths required His might, his skill, his word and will conspired. All that he had his image should present, All that it should present it could afford, To that he could afford his will was bent, His will was followed with performing word. Let this suffice, by this conceive the rest,— He should, he could, he would, he did, the best." - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
"The learning autobiography... is a reflective document that provides an overview of significant aspects of your educational, personal, and professional life. It demonstrates your ability to integrate the experiences of your life into a lifelong learning process; that is, it represents the ways you've assigned meaning to your own life's story. " - Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox
"Come up to me at early dawn, Come up to me, for I am drawn, Belovèd, by my spirit’s spell, To see the sons of Israël. For thee, my darling, I will spread Within my court a golden bed, And I will set a table there And bread for thee I will prepare, For thee my goblet I will fill With juices that my vines distil: And thou shalt drink to heart’s delight, Of all my flavours day and night. The joy in thee I will evince With which a people greets its prince. O son of Jesse, holy stem, God’s servant, born of Bethlehem!" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"Root of our saviour, The scion of Jesse, Till when wilt thou linger, Invisible, buried? Bring forth a flower, For winter is over! Why should a slave rule The lineage of princes, A hairy barbarian Replace our young sovran? The years are a thousand Since, broken and scattered, We wander in exile, Like waterfowl lost in The depths of the desert. No man in white linen Reveals at our asking The end of our Exile. God sealed up the matter, And closed up the knowledge." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"O God, my Sun, up now and rise, I pray thee, And be as the moon to illumine my darkness: Wherefore wilt Thou play the passing wayfarer And vanish like the fleeing gazelle? When shall the bud come to blossom, And the tender grape yield its sweet savour? How long wilt Thou cast off the remnants of Joseph? I was as a lamb led to the slaughter, One man drawing me from the fold and another performing the sacrifice. The lion rose murderous against me, And the wild ass breaketh my bones. The wild boar tore me, breathing fury, Pushing westwards and northwards. Dread God, who hast stretched out the heavens, Who closest and none can open, Now at last reprove kings for my sake— For far be it from Thee to be forgetful!— Thou shalt bring forth my prisoners from the pit: For the sake of our hero-ancestor’s righteousness, And shalt cleave the crown of the woman of Uz And shave off the hair of Esau. Take the young brood and prosper them, But do not let go the mother. O restore the maiden in her beautiful freshness, And fill with moisture all that is withered. Renew the Temple and the altar And establish singing men for Thy praise; One to glow with a song of loves, And one to make melody for the chief musician. Thus wilt Thou cause the horn of the Messiah to shoot up, And I shall be wholly joyful." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"May this my prayer aid mankind The path of right and worth to find; The living God, His wondrous ways, Herein inspire my song of praise. Nor is the theme at undue length set down, Of all my hymns behold "The Royal Crown. Wonderful are thy works, as my soul overwhelmingly knoweth. Thine, O Lord, are the greatness and the might, the beauty, the triumph, and the splendour. Thine, O Lord, is the Kingdom, and Thou art exalted as head over all. Thine are all riches and honour: Thine the creatures of the heights and depths. They bear witness that they perish, while Thou endurest. Thine is the might in whose mystery our thoughts can find no stay, so far art Thou beyond us. In Thee is the veiled retreat of power, the secret and the foundation. p. 83 Thine is the name concealed from the sages, The force that sustaineth the world on naught, And that can bring to light every hidden thing. Thine is the loving-kindness that ruleth over all Thy creatures, And the good treasured up for those who fear Thee. Thine are the mysteries that transcend understanding and thought. Thine is the life over which extinction holdeth no sway, And Thy throne is exalted above every sovereignty, And Thy habitation hidden in the shrouded height. Thine is the existence from the shadow of whose light every being was created, Of which we say, in His shadow we live. Thine are the two worlds between which Thou hast set a boundary, The first for deeds and the second for reward. Thine is the reward which Thou for the righteous hast stored up and hidden, Yea, Thou sawest it was goodly and didst hide it." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"In Koln, a town of monks and bones, And pavement fang'd with murderous stones, And rags and hags, and hideous wenches, I counted two-and-seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The River Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, nymphs! what power divine Shall henceforth whash the river Rhine. " - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"The Perfect Way knows no difficulties, Except that it refuses to make preferences. Only when freed from hate and love Does it reveal itself fully and without disguise. A tenth of an inch's difference, And heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see it before your own eyes, Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it. To set up what you like against what you dislike - This is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of the Way is not understood, Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose... Pursue not the outer entanglements, Dwell not in the inner void; Be serene in the oneness of things, And dualism vanishes of itself. When you strive to gain quiescence by stopping motion, The quiescence so gained is ever in motion. So long as you tarry in such dualism, How can you realize oneness? And when oneness is not thoroughly grasped, Loss is sustained in two ways: The denying of external reality is the assertion of it, And the assertion of Emptiness (the Absolute) is the denying of it... Transformations going on in the empty world that confronts us Appear to be real because of Ignorance. Do not strive to seek after the True, Only cease to cherish opinions. The two exist because of the One; But hot not even to this One. When a mind is not disturbed, The ten thousand things offer no offense... If an eye never falls asleep, All dreams will cease of themselves; If the Mind retains its absoluteness, The ten thousand things are of one substance. When the deep mystery of Suchness is fathomed, All of a sudden we forget the external entanglements; When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness, We return to the origin and remain where we have always been... One in all, All in One - If only this is realized, No more worry about not being perfect! When Mind and each believing mind are not divided, And undivided are each believing mind and Mind, This is where words fail, For it is not of the past, present or future." - Sen T’Sen, aka Seng T'San, Jianzhi Sengcan, Kanchi Sosan, Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen
"Religious truth, touch what points of it you will, has always to do with the being and government of God, and is, of course, illimitable in its reach." - Roswell Dwight Hitchcock
"The proof that in the numinous we have to deal with purely a priori cognitive elements is to be reached by introspection and a critical examination of reason such as Kant instituted. We find, that is, involved in the numinous experience, beliefs and feelings qualitatively different from anything that ‘natural’ sense-perception is capable of giving us. They are themselves not perceptions at all, but peculiar interpretations and valuations, at first of perceptual data, and then—at a higher level—of posited objects and entities, which themselves no longer belong to the perceptual world, but are thought of as supplementing and transcending it… The facts of the numinous consciousness point therefore—as likewise do also the ‘pure concepts of the understanding’ of Kant and the ideas and value-judgements of ethics or aesthetics—to a hidden substantive source, from which the religious ideas and feelings are formed, which lies in the mind independently of sense-experience; a ‘pure reason’ in the profoundest sense, which because of the ‘surpassingness’ of its content, must be distinguished from both the pure theoretical and pure practical reason of Kant, as something yet higher or deeper than they." - Rudolf Otto
"And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth; Four things greater than all things are-- Women and Horses and Power and War." - Rudyard Kipling
"Be like a river in generosity and giving help. Be like a sun in tenderness and pity. Be like night when covering other's faults. Be like a dead when furious and angry. Be like earth in modesty and humbleness. Be like a sea in tolerance. Be as you are or as you look like." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"Be occupied, then, with what you really value and let the thief take something else." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"Paradise is surrounded by what we dislike; the fires of hell are surrounded by what we desire.5" - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"The Prophets accept all agony and trust it for the water has never feared the fire." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"Without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing that I know. For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely, my love, which is of equal moment. For neither am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those things which I love I am not deceived; though even if these were false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited from loving false things, if it were false that I loved them? But, since they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved, the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as there is no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not wish to be. For how can he be happy, if he is nothing?" - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"I long to see you so totally ablaze with loving fire that you become one with gentle First truth. Truly the soul's being united with and transformed into him is like fire consuming the dampness in logs. Once the logs are heated through and through, the fire burns and changes them into itself, giving them its own color and warmth and power." - Saint Catherine of Siena NULL
"O loving, tender Word of God, You tell me: 'I have marked the path and opened the gate with My Blood; do not be negligent in following it, but take the same road which I, eternal Truth, have traced out with My Blood.' Arise, my soul, and follow your Redeemer, for no one can go to the Father but by Him. O sweet Christ, Christ-Love, You are the way, and the door through which we must enter in order to reach the Father." - Saint Catherine of Siena NULL
"You, eternal Trinity, are a deep sea. The more I enter you, the more I discover, and the more I discover, the more I seek you." - Saint Catherine of Siena NULL
"As God sets the soul in this dark night… He allows it not to find attraction or sweetness in anything whatsoever. God transfers to the spirit the good things and the strength of the senses… if it is not immediately conscious of spiritual sweetness and delight, but only of aridity and lack of sweetness, the reason for this is the strangeness of the exchange. #6. If those souls to whom this comes to pass knew how to be quiet at this time… then they would delicately experience this inward refreshment in that ease and freedom from care… it is like the air which, if one would close one’s hand upon it, escapes. In this state of contemplation… it is God Who is now working in the soul. He binds its interior faculties, and allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason with the memory. God communicates… by pure spirit. From this time forward imagination and fancy can find no support in any meditation." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"A sure warrant for looking forward with hope to deification of human nature is provided by the incarnation of God, which makes man god to the same degree as God Himself became man. For it is clear that He who became man without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) will divinize human nature without changing it into the divine nature, and will raise it up for His own sake to the same degree as He lowered Himself for man's sake. This is what St. Paul teaches mystically when he says, '…that in the ages to come He might display the overflowing richness of His grace' (Eph. 2:7)." - Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
"For by plucking out self-love, which is, as they say, the beginning and mother of all evils, everything that comes from it and after it is plucked out as well. Once this is no more, absolutely no form or trace of evil can any longer subsist. All the forms of virtue are introduced, fulfilling the power of love, which gather together what has been separated, once again fashioning the human being in accordance with a single meaning and mode. It levels off and makes equal any inequality or difference inclination in anything, or rather binds it to that praiseworthy inequality, by which each is so drawn to his neighbor in preference to himself and so honors him before himself, that he is eager to spurn any obstacle in his desire to excel. And for this reason each one willingly frees himself from himself, by separating himself from any thoughts or properties to which he is privately inclined, and is gathered to the one singleness and sameness, in accordance with which nothing is in anyway separated from what is common to all, so that each is in each, and all in all, or rather in God and in others, and they are radiantly established as one, having the one logos of being in themselves, utterly single in nature and inclination. And in this God is understood: in him they are all beheld together and they are bound together and raised to him, as the source and maker. The logos of being of all beings by nature preserves itself pure and inviolate for our attention, who, with conscious zeal through the virtues and the toils that accompany them, have been purified from the passions that rebel against it." - Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
"The extremities of the earth, and all in every part of it who purely and rightly confess the Lord look directly towards the most holy Roman Church and its confession and faith, as it were to a sun of unfailing light, awaiting from it the bright radiance of the sacred dogmas of our Fathers according to what the six inspired and holy councils have purely and piously decreed, declaring most expressly the symbol of faith. For from the coming down of the incarnate Word amongst us, all the Churches in every part of the world have held that greatest Church alone as their base and foundation, seeing that according to the promise of Christ our Savior, the gates of hell do never prevail against it, that it has the keys of a right confession and faith in Him, that it opens the true and only religion to such as approach with piety, and shuts up and locks every heretical mouth that speaks injustice against the Most High." - Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
"The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds. A soul filled with thoughts of sensual desire and hatred is unpurified. If we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man." - Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
"But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth." - Saint Paul, aka The Apostle Paul, Paul the Apostle or Saul of Tarsus NULL
"For this reason David, as a pilgrim, hastens to this common fatherland of all saints, seeking, on account of the uncleanness of this dwelling, that his sins be forgiven before he departs this life. For whoever has not received forgiveness of sins here will not be there. He will not be there because he will not be able to come to eternal life, because eternal life is the forgiveness of sins." - Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
"Love is sufficient of itself; it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in the practice. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return. The sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him." - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
"If I had to advise parents, I should tell them to take great care about the people with whom their children associate . . . Much harm may result from bad company, and we are inclined by nature to follow what is worse than what is better." - Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, fully Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton
"We must pray literally -without ceasing – in every occurrence and employment of our lives – that prayer of the heart which is independent of place or situation, or which is rather a habit of lifting up the heart to God as in a constant communication with Him." - Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, fully Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton
"Let us not be in doubt, O fellow humanity, concerning the hope of our salvation, seeing that the One who bore sufferings for our sakes is very concerned about our salvation; God’s mercifulness is far more extensive than we can conceive, God’s grace is greater than what we ask for." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"Love is the Kingdom, which the Lord mystically promised His disciples to eat in His Kingdom. For when we hear Him say, 'You shall eat and drink at the table of My Kingdom,' what do we suppose we shall eat, if not love? Love is sufficient to nourish a man instead of food and drink. This is the wine 'which makes glad the heart of man.' Blessed is he who partakes of this wine! Licentious men have drunk this wine and felt shame; sinners have drunk it and have forgotten the pathways of stumbling; drunkards have drunk this wine and became firm in virtue; the rich have drunk it and desired poverty; the poor have drunk it and been enriched with hope; the sick have drunk it and become strong; the unlearned have taken it and been made wise." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"Musicke doth withdraw our mindes from earthly cogitations, lifteth up our spirits into heaven, maketh them light and celestial" - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
"We follow the ways of wolves, the habits of tigers: or, rather we are worse than they. To them nature has assigned that they should be thus fed, while God has honored us with rational speech and a sense of equity. And yet we are become worse than the wild beast." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
"Our faith, trust, and love are proved and revealed in adversities, that is, in difficult and grievous outward and inward circumstances, during sickness, sorrow, and privations." - Saint John of Kronstadt, fully John Il’ich Serguiev, aka Holy Father John of the Kronstadt NULL
"Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
"By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis
"Obedience unites us so closely to God that it in a way transforms us into Him, so that we have no other will but His. If obedience is lacking, even prayer cannot be pleasing to God." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis
"The believer and the philosopher consider creatures differently. The philosopher considers what belongs to their proper natures, while the believer considers only what is true of creatures insofar as they are related to God, for example, that they are created by God and are subject to him, and the like." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis
"I can understand that the man you told me about has offended you, and I am very annoyed that he forgot himself like that. However, you must not consider what he did as coming from him but rather as a trial which God wishes to make of your patience. This virtue will be even more a virtue in you who are more sensitive by nature and have given less cause for the offense that you have received." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"In order to become soundly virtuous, it is advisable to make good practical resolutions concerning particular acts of the virtues and to be faithful in carrying the out afterwards. Without doing that, one is often virtuous only in one's imagination." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"It is not easy to find perfect men in whom there is nothing to criticize." - Saint Vincent de Paul