Therese of Lisieux
Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers, and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.Collection: Great
I have always wanted to become a saint. Unfortunately, when I have compared myself with the saints, I have always found that there is the same difference between the saints and me as there is between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and a humble grain of sand trodden underfoot by passers-by.
I understood that the Church had a Heart, and that this Heart was burning with love.
I feel in me the vocation of the Priest. I have the vocation of the Apostle. Martyrdom was the dream of my youth, and this dream has grown with me. Considering the mystical body of the Church, I desired to see myself in them all.
Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love.Collection: Eye
The value of life does not depend upon the place we occupy. It depends upon the way we occupy that place.Collection: Spiritual
Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father's love - difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul's miseries, her burdens, her needs - everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness. Everything is a grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events - to the heart that loves, all is well.Collection: Faith
Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.Collection: Sacrifice
If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.Collection: Spring
Perfect love means putting up with other peoples shortcomings, feeling no surprise at their weaknesses, finding encouragement even in the slightest evidence of good qualities in them.Collection: Encouragement
Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be and becoming that person.Collection: Faith
You know well that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.Collection: God
Let us love, since our heart is made for nothing else.Collection: Love
Jesus does not demand great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude.Collection: God
Love is the Cross, and the Cross is Love.Collection: Love Is
Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be.Collection: Holiness
I understood that every flower created by Him is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our lord's living garden.Collection: Beautiful
Above the clouds the sky is always blue.Collection: Faith
He does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He wills.Collection: Doe
My vocation, at last I have found it; my vocation is love.Collection: Lasts
When we yield to discouragement it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future.Collection: Inspirational
Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe.Collection: Life
Why should we defend ourselves when we are misunderstood and misjudged? Let us leave that aside. Let us not say anything. It is so sweet to let others judge us in any way they like. O blessed silence, which gives so much peace to the soul!Collection: Sweet
The loveliest materpiece of the heart of God is the love of a Mother.Collection: Mom
You cannot be half a saint; you must be a whole saint or no saint at all.Collection: Catholic
Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.Collection: Catholic
It is my weakness that gives me all my strength.Collection: Giving
Prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trail as well as joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.Collection: Gratitude
A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul.Collection: Soul
In that first 'fusion' with Jesus (holy communion), it was my Heavenly Mother again who accompanied me to the altar for it was she herself who placed her Jesus into my soul.Collection: Mother
If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter.Collection: Jesus
I am convinced that one should tell one's spiritual director if one has a great desire for Communion, for Our Lord does not come from Heaven every day to stay in a golden ciborium; He comes to find another heaven, the heaven of our soul in which He loves to dwell.Collection: Spiritual
At last there dawned the most beautiful day of all the days of my life. How perfectly I remember even the smallest details of those sacred hours! The joyful awakening, the reverent and tender embraces of my mistresses and older companions, the room filled with white frocks, like so many snowflakes, where each child was dressed in turn.Collection: Beautiful
You must open a little, or rather raise on high your corolla so that the Bread of Angels may come as divine dew to strengthen you, and to give you all that is wanting to you.Collection: Angel
(On entering Carmel) I came to save souls and especially to pray for priests.Collection: God
By our little acts of charity practiced in the shade we convert souls far away, we help missionaries, we win for them abundant alms; and by that means build actual dwellings spiritual and material for our Eucharistic Lord.Collection: Spiritual
He has created the poor savage with no guide but natural law, and it is to their hearts that He deigns to stoop. They are His wild flowers whose homeliness delights Him.Collection: Flower
Heaven for me is hidden in a little Host Where Jesus, my Spouse, is veiled for love. I go to that Divine Furnace to draw out life, And there my Sweet Saviour listens to me night and day.Collection: Sweet
What a joy to remember that she is our Mother! Since she loves us and knows our weakness, what have we to fear?Collection: Mother
(Whispered to a novice while standing in front of the convent library) Oh! I would have been sorry to have read all those books...If I had read them, I would have broken my head, and I would have wasted precious time that I could have employed very simply in loving God.Collection: God
My director, Jesus, does not teach me to count my acts, but to do everything for love, to refuse Him nothing, to be pleased when He gives me a chance to prove to Him that I love Him - but all this in peace - in abandonment.Collection: Love
For me to love you, Jesus, as you love me, I would have to borrow your own love and then only would I be at rest.Collection: Jesus
Life passes. Eternity comes to meet us with great strides. Soon we shall be living with the very life of Jesus. Having drunk deep at the source of all bitterness, we shall be deified in the very source of all joys, of all delights.Collection: Jesus
You heard me, only Friend whom I love. To ravish my heart, you became man. You shed your blood, what a supreme mystery!... And you still live for me on the Altar. If I cannot see the brilliance of your Face Or hear your sweet voice, O my God, I can live by your grace, I can rest on your Sacred Heart!Collection: Sweet
Time is but a shadow, a dream; already God sees us in glory and takes joy in our eternal beatitude. How this thought helps my soul! I understand then why He lets us suffer.Collection: Dream
God would turn the world around to find suffering in order to give it to a soul upon whom He has set His Divine gaze with ineffable love.Collection: Order
Remember that in ascending to the Father You could not leave us orphans; And in making yourself a prisoner on earth You knew to veil all your divine rays. But the shadow of your veil is luminous and pure. Living Bread of faith, Celestial Food, O mystery of love! My daily Bread, Jesus, is You!... Jesus, it is you who, despite the blasphemies Of the enemies of the Sacrament of love, It is you who want to show how much you love me, Since you make your dwelling in my heart. O Bread of the exiled! Holy and Divine Host, It is no longer I who live, but I live on your lifeCollection: Jesus
Let us rise above the things that pass away. Up above, the air is so pure. Jesus can hide Himself but we will find Him there.Collection: Faith
It has a supernatural grandeur which expands the soul and unites it with God. I say an Our Father or a Hail Mary when I feel so spiritually barren that I cannot summon up a single worth while thought. These two prayers fill me with rapture and feed and satisfy my soul.Collection: Prayer
I say nothing to him I love himCollection: I Love Him