“Much have I lost, but much have I had - Maybe it's best things went as they did - and so I give you thanks then God.”

“The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love.”

“Lord, give me what you have made me want; I praise and thank you for the desire that you have inspired; perfect what you have begun, and grant me what you have made me long for.”

“Therefore I beg you, reader, not to rejoice too greatly if you have read much, but if you have understood much. Nor that you have understood much, but that you have been able to retain it. Otherwise it is of little profit either to read or to understand.”

“Thank God for the things that I do not own.”

“Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face. This alone I know, that without you all to me is misery, woe outside myself and woe within, and all wealth but penury, if it is not my God.”

“Late have I loved you, Beauty so very ancient and so ever new. Late I have loved you! You were within, but I was without.”