“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one,” 

“There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the senses.” 

“What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty, and eat away its grace. they would defile it, and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. It would be always alive. (Dorian Gray regarding his portrait)” 

“The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.” 

“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life.” 

There are many people who can do big things, but there are very few people who will do the small things.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person

Never be so busy as not to think of others.

We must make our homes centers of compassion and forgive endlessly.

God doesn’t require us to succeed, he only requires that you try.

Be kind to each other. It is better to commit faults with gentleness than to work miracles with unkindness

God does not create poverty; we do, because we do not share.

We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, killings, of wars, or of hatred… If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other?

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

For all those who make such stories which are not true, I only say God forgive all these people. I feel sorry for them because they are doing so much harm to themselves

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway

Do we know our poor people? Do we know the poor in our house, in our family? Perhaps they are not hungry for a piece of bread. Perhaps our children, husband, wife, are not hungry, or naked, or dispossessed, but are you sure there is no one there who feels unwanted, deprived of affection?

The openness of our hearts and minds can be measured by how wide we draw the circle of what we call family.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness

No matter how tired you are, no matter how physically exhausting this work may be, it’s beautiful to bring a smile into someone’s life, to care for someone in need. What greater joy can there be?

The beginning of prayer is silence. If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God we need a clean heart; for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God; and then only from the fullness of our heart can we speak to God. But we cannot speak unless we have listened, unless we have made that connection with God in the silence of our heart

There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.

Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity

If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole World would be clean

Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three quarters of its victims are women: Half the babies and all the mothers

Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

It is a kingly act to assist the fallen

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop

We fear the future because we are wasting today.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers

God has not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful

One of the realities we’re all called to go through is to move from repulsion to compassion and from compassion to wonderment.

We cannot give what we have not got

We need to realize that poverty doesn’t only consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it is a tremendous hunger for human dignity. We need to love and to be someone for someone else

We interfere with God’s plans when we push in someone or something else not suitable for us. Be strict with yourself, and then be very strict with what you are receiving from the outside.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway

Am I ever angry or frustrated? I only feel angry sometimes when I see waste, when things that we waste are what people need, things that would save them from dying. Frustrated? No, never.

I know I am touching the living body of Christ in the broken bodies of the hungry and the suffering.

We must never be afraid to be a sign of contradiction for the world.