"September 8.—On the evening of the 6th I went to see the French Opera Company in Auber's 'Black Domino.' It did not please me as well as some music I have heard, though parts of it were very beautiful. The hymns of the nuns were very sweet. The thought occurred to me that if the Church does not provide religious gratifications for the true wants of humanity, she must be silent if men feed them profanely. It is because the Church has not done her duty that there are so many secular societies for Reformation, Temperance, and so on. The Church has provided for the salvation of the sinner's soul by means of spiritual acts, such as prayer, penance, the Eucharist and other sacraments. But now she must provide terrestrial sacraments for the salvation and transfiguration of the body."
"We should strive constantly to actualize the ideal we perceive. When we do realize all the beauty and holiness that we see, we are not called to deny ourselves, for then we are living as fully on all sides as we have capacity to do. Are we not in this state? Then, if we are sincere, we will give up lower and unnecessary gratifications for the sake of the ideal we have in view.
"I would die to prove my immortality."
"At times we are called to rely on Providence, to be imprudent and reckless according to the wisdom of the world. So I am willing to be thought. Each of us has an individual character to act out, under the inspiration of God, and this is the highest and noblest we can do. We are forms differing from one another, and if we are acting under the inspirations of the Highest, we are doing our uttermost; more the angels do not. What tends to hinder us from realizing the ideal which our vision sees must be denied, be it self, wealth, opinion, or death."
"The Heart says, 'Be all that you can.' The Intellect says, 'When you are all that you can be—what then?'"
"Infinite love is the basis of the smallest act of love, and when we love with our whole being, we are in and one with God."
"To love is to lose one's self and gain God. To be all in love is to be one with God."
"When the Spirit begets us, we are no more; the Spirit is, and there is nothing else."
"There is much debauchery in speaking wilfully.
"Every act of self is sin, is a lie.