Oh! How Seldom The Soul Is Silent,

True Love Goes Ever Straight Forward, Not In Its Own Strength, But Esteeming Itself As Nothing. Then Indeed We Are Truly Happy. The Cross Is No Longer A Cross When There Is No Self To Suffer Under It.

True Prayer Is Only Another Name For The Love Of God. Its Excellence Does Not Consist In The Multitude Of Our Words; For Our Father Knoweth What Things We Have Need Of Before We Ask Him. The True Prayer Is That Of The Heart, And The Heart Prays Only For What It Desires. To Pray, Then Is To Desire -- But To Desire What God Would Have Us Desire. He Who Asks What He Does Not From The Bottom Of His Heart Desire, Is Mistaken In Thinking That He Prays.

God's Treasury Where He Keeps His Children's Gifts Will Be Like Many A Mother's Store Of Relics Of Her Children, Full Of Things Of No Value To Others, But Precious In His Eyes For The Love's Sake That Was In Them.

Should We Feel At Times Disheartened And Discouraged, A Simple Movement Of Heart Toward God Will Renew Our Powers. Whatever He May Demand Of Us, He Will Give Us At The Moment The Strength And Courage That We Need.

It Is This Unquiet Self-love That Renders Us So Sensitive. The Sick Man, Who Sleeps Ill, Thinks The Night Long. We Exaggerate, From Cowardice, All The Evils Which We Encounter; They Are Great, But Our Sensibility Increases Them. The True Way To Bear Them Is To Yield Ourselves Up With Confidence To God.