“How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains,Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains:That Men may say, when we the Front-box grace,Behold the first in Virtue, as in Face!”

“First, we think all truth is beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain is good because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex is beautiful even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety without making moral judgments. We think the prostitute is as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature and are woven into the design of life!”

“Humility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue. ”

“Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.”

“Hereby we may understand that God, of His special grace, maketh the teachers of the gospel subject to the Cross, and to all kinds of afflicitons, for the salvation of themselves and of the people; for otherwise they could by no means beat down this beast which is called vain-glory.”

“Humility is the flip side of giving God all the glory. Humility means reveling in his grace, not our goodness.”