This obstinate will to personal happiness is the cause of unrest and division in your soul. Give it up and work against it: the rest will be given you without effort.

We notice the person who is for ever bowing and fussily servile, and perhaps say, How humble he is! But the truly humble person escapes notice: the world does not know him.

It is precisely our egoism, our self-centeredness and self-love that cause all our difficulties, our lack of freedom in suffering, our disappointments and our anguish of soul and body.

However weighed down and entangled in earthly fetters you may be, it can never be too late.

It begins here, and has no end, and no earthly power can coerce it; and it is to be found in the human heart.

You must learn to follow privately the Lord's bidding: not to speak empty words, not to adorn yourself, always to obey authority, not to look at a woman with desire, not to be angry and much else.

It is for us to begin. If we take one step towards the Lord, he takes ten towards us -- he who saw the prodigal son while he was at a distance, and had compassion and ran and embraced him.

Remember: there is no place, no community, no external circumstance that is not serviceable for the battle you have chosen. The exception is only such work as directly serves your vices.

Instinct seeks satisfaction. Love is free of all demands.

Say nothing of the new life you have begun or of the experiment you are making and experiences you expect to have. All this is a matter between God and you, and only between you two.

The saints' deep secret is this: do not seek freedom, and freedom will be given you.

I passed out from stress? That’s it?”“I believe the princess term is fainted, ” said Thorne.

Convince yourself that you can do it, and the rest of the world will automatically be convinced

We lost our way and allowed greed and excess to become the twin pillars of too much of the financial culture. We became a society utterly absorbed in consumption and dismissive of moderation.

A criminal trial is never about seeking justice for the victim. If it were, there could be only one verdict: guilty.

We all choke. You're not human if you haven t.

It's my singing that allows me to stand apart.

A man imagines a happy marriage as a marriage of love; even if he makes fun of marriages that are without love, or feels sorry for lovers who are without marriage.

My intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and insanity.

Happy is the house that shelters a friend.

Jesus is absolutely at the centre of Western civilisation and part of my fascination with him is, why? What is it about this particular man and his story?