St. Jerome

A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts.
St. Jerome

A friend is long sought, hardly found, and with difficulty kept.
St. Jerome

Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a be general natural law.
St. Jerome

Action without a name, a "who" attached to it, is meaningless.
St. Jerome

Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you.
St. Jerome

Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied.
St. Jerome

Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.
St. Jerome

Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield.
St. Jerome

Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies!
St. Jerome

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best.
St. Jerome

Haste is of the Devil.
St. Jerome

Keep doing some kind of work, that the devil may always find you employed.
St. Jerome

Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life.
St. Jerome

Love is not to be purchased, and affection has no price.
St. Jerome

Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night.
St. Jerome

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.
St. Jerome

The friendship that can cease has never been real.
St. Jerome

The scars of others should teach us caution.
St. Jerome

They talk like angels but they live like men.
St. Jerome

True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.
St. Jerome

Virginity can be lost by a thought.
St. Jerome

What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way.
St. Jerome

Why do you not practice what you preach.
St. Jerome

An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception.

Harold Lokes

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

Helen Keller

The Massage ~ Vanias Stories

The Massage ~ Vanias Stories

St. Francis of Assisi

Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.
St. Francis of Assisi

For it is in giving that we receive.
St. Francis of Assisi

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.
St. Francis of Assisi

I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.
St. Francis of Assisi

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.
St. Francis of Assisi

If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.
St. Francis of Assisi

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.
St. Francis of Assisi

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
St. Francis of Assisi

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
St. Francis of Assisi

It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.
St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.
St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
St. Francis of Assisi

No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.
St. Francis of Assisi

Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.
St. Francis of Assisi

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
St. Francis of Assisi

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.
St. Francis of Assisi

Where there is injury let me sow pardon.
St. Francis of Assisi

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.
St. Francis of Assisi

Saint Teresa of Avila

All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.
Saint Teresa of Avila

Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.
Saint Teresa of Avila

God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.
Saint Teresa of Avila

God has been very good to me, for I never dwell upon anything wrong which a person has done, so as to remember it afterwards. If I do remember it, I always see some other virtue in that person.
Saint Teresa of Avila

I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
Saint Teresa of Avila

It is here, my daughters, that love is to be found - not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin. And believe me, although we may more often fail and commit small lapses, our gain will be incomparably the greater.
Saint Teresa of Avila

O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it.
Saint Teresa of Avila

Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds.
Saint Teresa of Avila

Pain is never permanent.
Saint Teresa of Avila

The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.
Saint Teresa of Avila

The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit.
Saint Teresa of Avila

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.
Saint Teresa of Avila

To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that.
Saint Teresa of Avila

To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.
Saint Teresa of Avila

We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.
Saint Teresa of Avila

To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

Heather Cortez

If you love me, let me know. If not, please gently let me go.

Anonymous

Great passions, my dear, don't exist: they're liars fantasies. What do exist are little loves that may last for a short or a longer while.

Anna Magnani
1918-1973, Egyptian-born Italian Actor

Saint Teresa

Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.
Saint Teresa

Anyone who truly loves God travels securely.
Saint Teresa

Do you think it is only a little thing to possess a house from which lovely things can be seen?
Saint Teresa

Don't let your sins turn into bad habits.
Saint Teresa

For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.
Saint Teresa

I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.
Saint Teresa

More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.
Saint Teresa

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.
Saint Teresa

You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.

Sam Keen

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime.
Edgar Allan Poe

Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.

Bette Davis

Charity creates a multitude of sins.
Oscar Wilde

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The best thing about me is you.

Shannon Crown

When you are in Love you can't fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams."

Dr Seuss

What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is first-rate, that you don't need love when you do or that you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

Doris Lessing
1919-, British Novelist

Saint Patrick

Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in his compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall.
Saint Patrick

Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.
Saint Patrick

I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and despised in the eyes of many.
Saint Patrick

If I be worthy, I live for my God to teach the heathen, even though they may despise me.
Saint Patrick

If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me.
Saint Patrick

No one should ever say that it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small according to God's good pleasure; but let this be your conclusion and let it so be thought, that - as is the perfect truth - it was the gift of God.
Saint Patrick

That which I have set out in Latin is not my words but the words of God and of apostles and prophets, who of course have never lied. He who believes shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be damned. God has spoken.
Saint Patrick

The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelieving heart, so that I should recall my sins.
Saint Patrick

Saint Bernard

I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind.
Saint Bernard

You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.
Saint Bernard

There is only one happiness in life -- to love and to be loved.

George Sand
1804-1876, French Novelist

Saint Ignatius

It is not hard to obey when we love the one whom we obey.
Saint Ignatius

Teach us to give and not to count the cost.
Saint Ignatius

The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness.
Saint Ignatius

True, I am in love with suffering, but I do not know if I deserve the honor.
Saint Ignatius

We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.
Saint Ignatius

Human Love... It is that extra creation that stands hurt and baffled at the place of death. Being human, wanting children and sunlight and breath to go on, forever.

Christopher Leach
American Poet

We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld
1613-1680, French Classical Writer

Women wish to be loved not because they are pretty, or good, or well bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.

Henri Frederic Amiel
1821-1881, Swiss Philosopher, Poet, Critic

True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld
1613-1680, French Classical Writer

There is no disguise that can for long conceal love where it exists or simulate it where it does not.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld
1613-1680, French Classical Writer

It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld
1613-1680, French Classical Writer

If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld
1613-1680, French Classical Writer

Edith Stein

As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men, the anguish in our neighbor's soul must break all precept. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.
Edith Stein

Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul 'prays in us with unspeakable groanings'.
Edith Stein

If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.
Edith Stein

In order to be an image of God, the spirit must turn to what is eternal, hold it in spirit, keep it in memory, and by loving it, embrace it in the will.
Edith Stein

My longing for truth was a single prayer.
Edith Stein

On the question of relating to our fellowman - our neighbor's spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is an end already, since God is love.
Edith Stein

One could say that in case of need, every normal and healthy woman is able to hold a position. And there is no profession which cannot be practiced by a woman.
Edith Stein

The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church.
Edith Stein

The nation... doesn't simply need what we have. It needs what we are.
Edith Stein

Those who join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone.
Edith Stein

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.
Abraham Lincoln

What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.

St. Augustine
354-430, Numidian-born Bishop of Hippo, Theologian

Love is as much of an object as an obsession, everybody wants it, everybody seeks it, but few ever achieve it, those who do will cherish it, be lost in it, and among all, never... never forget it.

Curtis Judalet

Saint Augustine

A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.
Saint Augustine

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.
Saint Augustine

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.
Saint Augustine

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
Saint Augustine

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
Saint Augustine

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.
Saint Augustine

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.
Saint Augustine

Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?
Saint Augustine

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
Saint Augustine

Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
Saint Augustine

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.
Saint Augustine

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.
Saint Augustine

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
Saint Augustine

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.
Saint Augustine

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.
Saint Augustine

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.
Saint Augustine

He that is jealous is not in love.
Saint Augustine

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
Saint Augustine

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.
Saint Augustine

Hear the other side.
Saint Augustine

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.
Saint Augustine

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.
Saint Augustine

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.''
Saint Augustine

I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.
Saint Augustine

If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.
Saint Augustine

If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.
Saint Augustine

If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.
Saint Augustine

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
Saint Augustine

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
Saint Augustine

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.
Saint Augustine

It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr.
Saint Augustine

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.
Saint Augustine

Love is the beauty of the soul.
Saint Augustine

Love, and do what you like.
Saint Augustine

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
Saint Augustine

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.
Saint Augustine

My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.
Saint Augustine

No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.
Saint Augustine

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.
Saint Augustine

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
Saint Augustine

Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet.
Saint Augustine

Our bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are a working out of the processes of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point.
Saint Augustine

Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.
Saint Augustine

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
Saint Augustine

Punishment is justice for the unjust.
Saint Augustine

Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.
Saint Augustine

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
Saint Augustine

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.
Saint Augustine

The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.
Saint Augustine

The greatest evil is physical pain.
Saint Augustine

The purpose of all wars, is peace.
Saint Augustine

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.
Saint Augustine

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
Saint Augustine

There is no possible source of evil except good.
Saint Augustine

There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.
Saint Augustine

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.
Saint Augustine

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.
Saint Augustine

Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.
Saint Augustine

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.
Saint Augustine

To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
Saint Augustine

To seek the highest good is to live well.
Saint Augustine

We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.
Saint Augustine

We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.
Saint Augustine

We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.
Saint Augustine

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
Saint Augustine

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.
Saint Augustine

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
Saint Augustine

Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.
Saint Augustine