Keep a clear eye toward life's end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God's creature. What you are in his sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received...but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage.
A man has only so much knowledge as he puts to work.
Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.
Great and glorious God, and Thou Lord Jesus, I pray you shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. Be found of me, Lord, so that in all things I may act only in accordance with Thy holy will.
Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these, they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.
The Father willed that his blessed and glorious Son, whom he gave to us and who was born for us, should through his own blood offer himself as a sacrificial victim on the altar of the cross. This was to be done not for himself through whom all things were made, but for our sins.
Holy poverty confounds cupidity and avarice and the cares of this world.
A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.
While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.
Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is the day through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour; of You, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens, you have made them bright, precious and fair.
Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.
Holy charity confounds all diabolical and fleshly temptations and all fleshly fears.
It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.
For it is in giving that we receive.
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man's conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.
Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
