Stillness mortifies the outward senses and resurrects the inward movements, whereas agitation does the opposite, that is, it resurrects the outward senses and deadens the inward movements.
If you give gladly, even if you give only a little, it is a big gift. If you give unwillingly, even if you give a big gift, you turn it into a small one.
Love of God proceeds from conversing with him; this conversation of prayer comes about through stillness, and stillness comes with the stripping away of the self.
But let thine apparel be plain, not for adornment, but for necessary conversing: not to minister to thy vanity, but to keep thee warm in winter, and to hide the unseemliness of the body: lest under the pretence of hiding the unseemliness, thou fall under another kind of unseemliness by thy extravagant dress.
A little fire softens a large piece of wax. So, too, a small indignity often softens, sweetens and wipes away suddenly all the fierceness, insensibility & hardness of our heart.
