Our sins are nothing but a grain of sand alongside the great mountain of the mercy of God.
—Saint John Vianney

How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy?
—Isaac Bashevis Singer

Mercy is the fulfillment of justice, not its abolition.
—Thomas Aquinas

The true, the only perfection is not to embrace such and such a way of life; it is to do God’s will. It is to lead the kind of life God wants . . . .
—Charles de Foucauld

I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who had been seeking God, but God who had been seeking me. I had made myself the centre of my own existence . . . . God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.
—Bede Griffiths

He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.
—George Herbert

If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because he himself is the way.
—Thomas Aquinas

Love is not blind; that is the last thing that love is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound, the less it is blind.
—G.K. Chesterton

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
—Roald Dahl

Because we are made in God’s image, in fleeing from a relationship with a loving God, we are also running from being our most authentic selves.
—Kathleen Norris

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
—Albert Schweitzer

Everything must be done or not done, changed or not changed on account of charity. Charity is the principle by which and the end toward which everything must be guided. There can be no sin in what is accomplished, in all truth, for it, and according to its spirit.
—Isaac, Cistercian abbot of l’Etoile

Being friends . . . love, these open the prison by supreme power, by some magic force. Where sympathy is renewed, life is restored.
—Vincent van Gogh 

There can only be two basic loves . . . the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self, or the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God.
—Saint Augustine of Hippo

He who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being magnanimous.
—Henri Frederick Amiel

Be a light wherever you stand and whenever you stand. . . . Be an example of truth, kindness, and justice. Be a reflection of the Savior.
—Justin Steckbauer

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
—Cynthia Ozick

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a . . . single power, a single salvation, and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.
—Hermann Hesse

God is not very concerned with the method by which rulers come to power; he is passionately and compassionately concerned with what they do once they attain power.
—N. T. Wright

That is our vocation: to convert . . . the enemy into a guest and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced. 
—Henri J. M. Nouwen

We are the other of the other.
—Marcus Aurelius

The foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.
—Italo Calvino

Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

For me the most radical demand of Christian faith lies in summoning the courage to say yes to the present risenness of Jesus Christ.
—Brennan Manning

Faith is not a privilege to be claimed, but a gift to be shared.
—Pope Francis

What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don’t follow in his footsteps?
—Anonymous

Eternal life is personal existence in continuity with the present life but transfigured.
​—Georgia Harkness

One day, the gospel tells us, the tension gradually accumulated between humanity and God will touch the limits prescribed by the possibilities of the world. . . . Then the presence of Christ, which has been silently accruing in all things, will suddenly be revealed, like a flash from pole to pole.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.

In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.
—John O’Donohue

Every faithful act of service, every honest labor to make the world a better place . . . will be seen on that day to have contributed to the perfect fellowship of God’s kingdom.
—Amy L. Sherman

On the one hand, love everything without distinction. On the other, love only the good. A mystery.
—Simone Weil

The possibility [exists] that hope comes out of hopelessness and that the opposite of things carry the seeds of birth—love out of hate, good out of evil. Didn’t flowers grow out of dirt?
—Robert Cormier 

Celebrating the Eucharist as a remembrance of Christ means practicing God’s justice towards neighbors, strangers, and enemies alike.
—Patrick T. McCormick

I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us.
—Psalm 78:2-3