It is in the highest interests of the devil to persuade the world that religious people are disagreeable.

Love and sacrifice are not the same thing, but they are inseparable. To think of Christ and to think of the Cross is not the same thing, but the association is so close that the implication is immediate. Where love has been preached without sacrifice, it has not led to love but to license.

Do I want to pray or only to think about my human problems? Do I want to pray or simply kneel there contemplating my sorrow? Do I want to direct my prayer toward God or let it direct itself towards me?

If you do not pray, everything can disappoint you by going wrong. If you do pray, everything can still go wrong, but not in a way that will disappoint you.

Thinking about interior peace destroys interior peace. The patient who constantly feels his pulse is not getting any better.

A lot of trouble about prayer would disappear if only we realized - really realized - that we go to pray not because we love prayer, but because we love God.