Inspirational thoughts

“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Merely to remain true to the faith is not enough. Certainly we must preserve and defend the treasure of truth and grace that we have inherited through Christian tradition. … But neither the preservation nor the defense of the faith exhausts the duty of the Church in regard to the gifts it has been given. The very nature of the gifts which Christ has given the Church demands that they be extended to others and shared with others.” Pope St. Paul VI

“But it is possible, it is possible: the old grief, by a great mystery of human life, gradually passes into quiet, tender joy; instead of young, ebullient blood comes a mild, serene old age: I bless the sun’s rising each day and my heart sings to it as before, but now I love its setting even more, its long slanting rays, and with them quiet, mild, tender memories, dear images from the whole of a long and blessed life–and over all is God’s truth, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace.” Leo Tolstoy

“Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.” St. John of the Cross

“Once the process [of conversion] is begun and continues…you are continually turning inward toward God and away from your own egocentricity…you have to see this selfish side of yourself in order to turn away from it.” Flannery O’Connor

“To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that.” St. Teresa of Avila

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”

David Mitchell,  Cloud Atlas

“In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s, we do not accept them easily enough.” CS Lewis