Saint Teresa of Avila

“To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.”

“I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.”

“For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.”

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

“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.”

“The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.”

“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.”

“Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.”

“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.”

“I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.”