“When fear is excessive it can make many a man despair.”

“If grass grows and withers, it can only mean that it is part of a greater thing, which is even more real; not that the grass is less real than it looks. St. Thomas (Aquinas) has a really logical right to say, in the words of the modern mystic, A. E.: "I begin by the grass to be bound again to the Lord.”

“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”

“When fear is excessive it can make many a man despair.”

“Far graver is it to corrupt the faith that is the life of the soul than to counterfeit the money that sustains temporal life.”

“Faith is God's work within us.”

“Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not in hand.”

“Saint Thomas Aquinas says, wisely, that the only way to drive out a bad passion is by a stronger good passion. The same is true of thoughts as of passions. When your mind wanders, like a child, your will must bring it back, like a mother. [. . .] The will-parent must discipline the mind-child, avoiding both the opposite extremes commonly made in disciplining either children or thoughts: tyranny or permissiveness.”

“...this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion.”

“The author challenges how much sanctity has to do with sameness, as he says saints are as different from each other as those in any group -- even murderers.”

“St Thomas (Aqinas) loved books and lived on books... When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, ‘I have understood every page I ever read’.”