Thou art the rarest, most precious, the sole good; and withal Thou art the most lasting. The creature changes, the Creator never. Then only the creature stops changing, when it rests on Thee.

On Thee the Angels look and are at peace; that is why they have perfect bliss. They never can lose their blessedness, for they never can lose Thee.

- "Jesus Christ yesterday and today, and the same for ever", Meditations and Devotions

Let me not give my heart to anything here. Let nothing allure me from Thee; O keep me wholly and entirely. Keep thou this most frail heart and this most weak head in Thy Divine keeping. Draw me to Thee morning, noon, and night for consolation. Be Thou my own bright Light, to which I look, for guidance and for peace.

- "Jesus Christ yesterday and today, and the same for ever", Meditations and Devotions

God, what can I trust in? There is nothing I dare trust in; nay, did I trust in anything of earth, I believe for that very reason it would be taken away from me. I know Thou wouldest take it away, if Thou hadst love for me.

Everything short of Thee, O Lord, is changeable, but Thou endurest. Thou art ever one and the same. Ever the true God of man, and unchangeably so.

- "Jesus Christ yesterday and today, and the same for ever", Meditations and Devotions

Thou alone, my dear Lord, art the food for eternity, and Thou alone. Thou only canst satisfy the soul of man. Eternity would be misery without Thee, even though Thou didst not inflict punishment. To see Thee, to gaze on Thee, to contemplate Thee, this alone is inexhaustible.

- "God the Blessedness of the Soul", Meditations and Devotions

It had been known that Leo XIII, very soon after his election, on being asked by an intimate friend, the Commendatore de Rossi, "What, Holy Father, will be your policy as Pope?" had replied, "Wait till you see my first Cardinal; that will show you what will be typical of my reign".

- a recollection of Fr William Neville of the Birmingham Oratory

Men would forget sin, but they cannot. Hence it is that all false views of religion fail - the views of the day; a bright careless religion does in the sunshine, not in the shade. Here it is that Christ spoke to the heart. He comes to do that which false religions and infidelity ignore - to cure sin.

- notes of sermon preached Third Sunday after Epiphany 1851

The world... shrinks from confessing that God is the Son of Mary. It shrinks, for it is at once confronted with a severe fact, which violates and shatters its own unbelieving view of things; the revealed doctrine forthwith takes its true shape, and receives an historical reality; and the Almighty is introduced into His own world at a certain time and in a definite way.

Dreams are broken and shadows depart; the Divine truth is no longer a poetical expression, or a devotional exaggeration, or a mystical economy, or a mythical representation...

[T]he confession that Mary is Deipara, or the Mother of God, is that safeguard wherewith we seal up and secure the doctrine of the Apostle from all evasion.

- "The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son", Discourses to Mixed Congregations

My God, I know not in what sense I can pain Thee in Thy glorified state; but I know that every fresh sin, every fresh ingratitude I now commit, was among the blows and stripes which once fell on Thee in Thy passion. O let me have as little share in those Thy past sufferings as possible. Day by day goes, and I find I have been more and more, by the new sins of each day, the cause of them. I know that at best I have a real share in solido of them all, but still it is shocking to find myself having a greater and greater share. Let others wound Thee—let not me. Let not me have to think that Thou wouldest have had this or that pang of soul or body the less, except for me. O my God, I am so fast in prison that I cannot get out. O Mary, pray for me. O Philip, pray for me, though I do not deserve Thy pity.

- "The Mental Sufferings of Our Lord", Meditations and Devotions

To possess Thee, O Lover of Souls, is happiness, and the only happiness of the immortal soul!

- Meditations and Devotions  

He who made Judas his prey, has got foothold of me in my old age, and I cannot get loose. It is the same day after day. When wilt Thou give me a still greater grace than Thou hast given, the grace to profit by the graces which Thou givest? When wilt Thou give me Thy effectual grace which alone can give life and vigour to this effete, miserable, dying soul of mine?

- "The Mental Sufferings of Our Lord", Meditations and Devotions