Vincent de Paul
Charity is the cement which binds Communities to God and persons to one another . . .Collection: God
If God is the center of your life, no words are necessary. Your mere presence will touch hearts.Collection: Heart
We should strive to keep our hearts open to the sufferings and wretchedness of other people, and pray continually that God may grant us that spirit of compassion which is truly the spirit of God.Collection: Heart
We should spend as much time in thanking God for his benefits as we do in asking him for them.Collection: Prayer
We must love our neighbor as being made in the image of God and as an object of His love.Collection: Love
I will always welcome joyfully any opportunity that comes my way to be of service to youCollection: Leadership
God allows us to give rise to the practice of two beautiful virtues: perseverance, which leads us to attain the goal, and constancy, which helps us to overcome difficulties.Collection: Beautiful
Let us allow God to act; He brings things to completion when we least expect it.Collection: Faith
Noise makes no good, good makes no noise.Collection: Noise
Let us do our duty well; let us go straight to God; let us work to become very humble, very patient, very mortified, and very charitable.Collection: Humble
All beginnings are somewhat strange; but we must have patience, and little by little, we shall find things, which at first were obscure, becoming clearer.Collection: Littles
So, our vocation is to go, not just to one parish, not just to one diocese, but all over the world; and do what? To set people's hearts on fire, to do what the Son of God did. He came to set the world on fire in order to inflame it with His love.Collection: Heart
With God's help, you will continue to succeed in your leadership and in your duties, because Our Lord's work is accomplished not so much by the multitude of workers as by the fidelity of the small number whom He calls.Collection: Faith
The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.Collection: Christian
Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances.Collection: Life
Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying.Collection: Truth
Put your trust in Him and following His example, always act humbly, graciously, and in good faith.Collection: Example
We cannot better assure our eternal happiness than by living and dying in the service of the poor, in the arms of Providence, and with genuine renouncement of ourselves in order to follow Jesus Christ.Collection: Jesus
All comes at the proper time to him who knows how to wait.Collection: Inspirational
Fear not; calm will follow the storm, and perhaps soon.Collection: Wisdom
Since God is satisfied with our good will and honest efforts, let us also be satisfied with the outcome He gives to them, and our actions will never be without good resultsCollection: Faith
There is no act of charity that is not accompanied by justice or that permits us to do more than we reasonably can.Collection: Justice
And what are we doing if we are not doing God's Will?Collection: Faith
Nature makes trees put down deep roots before having them bear fruit, and even this is done gradually.Collection: Wisdom
To this end, we should help and support one another and strive for peace and union among ourselves. This is the wine that cheers and strengthens travelers along the narrow path of Jesus Christ.Collection: Faith
. . . Practice teaching catechism and preaching. Missionaries must apply themselves to these tasks and although they do not accomplish them as successfully as others do, according to the opinion of men, it must be enough for them that they are doing the Will of God and perhaps producing more real fruit.Collection: Faith
We are still tossed about by the disturbances of this life, which is like a stormy sea, where those who are not attached to J[esus] C[hrist] and the duties of their state, as was our dear departed, are shipwrecked.Collection: Faith
I can understand that the man you told me about has offended you, and I am very annoyed that he forgot himself like that. However, you must not consider what he did as coming from him but rather as a trial which God wishes to make of your patience. This virtue will be even more a virtue in you who are more sensitive by nature and have given less cause for the offense that you have received.Collection: Men
...Omit nothing which can advance his work, and not blame others for the delay.Collection: Faith
I feel so strongly about the truths Our Lord taught us by word and example that I cannot help but see how everything done according to that teaching always succeeds perfectly well, while things done the opposite way have a quite different result.Collection: Faith
Naturally, everyone is disheartened by sharp reprimands, and by the most amiable corrections as well, if they are frequent, immoderate, or given inappropriately.Collection: Wisdom
Experience teaches that what is feasible at the beginning is sometimes harmful as things go on, or subject to troublesome inconveniencesCollection: Wisdom
We must be firm but not rough in our guidance and avoid an insipid kind of meekness, which is ineffective. We will learn from Our Lord how our meekness should always be accompanied by humility and grace so as to attract hearts to Him and not cause anyone to turn away from Him.Collection: Heart
I would rather him to bear patiently with it than to put himself in danger of a greater evil.Collection: Faith
God has granted me today a very particular fondness for requesting of Him that same virtue of ever choosing the worst and that which is contrary to my own liking.Collection: Today
A man who behaves poorly in a Community will not do well in a parish.Collection: Faith
If you say that a good reputation serves to benefit the neighbor more, I admit that. However, since it should be based on a good life, it is, therefore, preserved by the practice of virtue and not by human intrigue.Collection: Wisdom
[N]or should you move so fast! The works of God do not proceed in that way; they come about of themselves, and those He does not create soon perish.Collection: Faith
If, in order to succeed in an enterprise, I were obliged to choose between fifty deer commanded by a lion, and fifty lions commanded by a deer, I should consider myself more certain of success with the first group than with the second.Collection: Order
Without [firmness] I see the majority of Communities that are lax reach that state because of the excessive leniency of Superiors. So, be firm, Monsieur.Collection: Leadership
Would that God, Monsieur, had rendered us worthy of spending our lives, as Our Lord did, for the salvation of those poor souls so far removed from all assistance.Collection: Faith
If there is any danger in the present weather, in the name of God, Monsieur, wait until springCollection: Wisdom
...Seek counsel of very pious, disinterested persons, and follow the call of O[ur] L[ord] and the advice of those persons.Collection: Faith
I know well, Monsieur, how much you have to endure in your present duty, and I ask Our Lord to strengthen you in your difficulties. It is in such circumstances that we acquire virtue; where there is no suffering, there is little merit. My wish is that God may grant us great indifference with regard to duties. O Monsieur, how sure we would then be of doing His Holy Will, which is our sole aspiration, and how much peace and contentment we would enjoy, or so it seems to me!Collection: Suffering
[W]isdom consists in following Providence step by step. And you can be sure of the truth of a maxim which seems paradoxical, namely, that he who is hasty falls back in the interests of God.Collection: Faith
His Divine Goodness asks that we never do good in any place to make ourselves look important but that we always consider Him directly, immediately, and without intermediary in all our actions.Collection: Faith
That's what our Rules engage us to do, to help poor persons, our lords and masters.Collection: Charity
We must hold as an irrefutable maxim that the difficulties we have with our neighbor arise more from our immortified moods than from anything else.Collection: Neighbor
But the blessed Bishop of Geneva taught his nuns another kind of prayer, which even the sick can make: to remain peacefully in the presence of God, manifesting our needs to Him with no other mental effort, like a poor person who uncovers his sores and by this means is more effective in inciting passers-by to do him some good than if he wore himself out trying to convince them of his need.Collection: Faith
What you are saying is true of those who want everything to give way to them, nothing to oppose them, everything to go their way, people to obey them without comment or delay and, in a manner of speaking, to be adored.Collection: Leadership