The Spiritual Maxims of St. Francis de Sales

[Denise]

Annihilate yourself in the very depths of your being, to see that God wills to use your littleness to do Him a service of great importance.

Let us sweetly hide out littleness in His greatness.

Humble yourself lovingly before God and men, for God speaks to ears bowed down.

[Denise]

The highest point of humility is not only to know one's abjection, but to love it.

A man who despises himself in true humility is happy to discover others who agree with him.

Shall I be humble? Yes, if you will it. But I will it. You are it then. But I feel distinctly that I am not. So much the better, for this serves to make it more certain.

[Denise]

What is the good of making a gilded frame for a paper picture?

We oftentimes approach closer to our Lord by withdrawing through humility than by approaching at our own choice.

When you humble yourselves, it must be with a gentle and peaceful, not with a querulous and impatient, humility.

[Denise]

The more pains holy humility costs you, the more graces it will give you.

Let us never make a show of wishing to be last, unless in our hearts we wish to be such.

Abase yourself often in the abyss of your nothingness.

[Denise]

Self-dispraise is no more than a tricky kind of boasting.

True humility makes no pretense of being humble, and scarcely ever utters words of humility.

You must lovingly leave some work to others, and not seek to have all the crowns.

[Denise]

Give attention to cutting off your own will, and you will soon quit these phantoms of sanctity in which you repose so superstitiously.

Provided that God be glorified, we must not care by whom.

He who believes himself to be far advanced in the spiritual life has not even made a good beginning.

[Denise]

On Patience

Have patience on all the world, but first of all with yourself.

The drones make more noise and are in a greater hurry than the bees, but they do not make the honey.

Things which grow in one day, decay in another.

[Denise]

Those who aim at the love of God need patience with themselves even more than with others.

The virtue of patience is the one which mot assures us of perfection.

The angels have a care for our salvation and procure it with diligence, yet they do not have solicitude, worry and anxiety.

[Denise]

We must suffer with patience the delay of our perfection, while ever cheerfully doing what we can for our advancement therein.

Let us await our advancement with patience, and instead of disquieting ourselves because we have so little profited in the time past, let us diligently endeavor to do better in the time to come.

Have patience to walk with short steps till you have wings to fly.

[Denise]

Do not be eager about your work.

Eagerness is the mother-imperfection of all imperfections.

We shall always have quite soon enough what we desire whenever it pleases God to give it to us.

[Denise]

Be patient not only in regard to the substance of the afflictions which befall you, but also in regard to the accidental inconveniences which are attached to them.

It is a sorrowful thing to see how little we imitate the patience of our Savior.

[Denise]

On Obedience

In obedience all is secure; out of it all is to be suspected.

Some find that; there is disobedience in the thing which they desire, and wish that it was not there; others seek for it, and only desire the thing because it is forbidden.

To find the Savior outside obedience is to lose Him altogether.

[Denise]

When God puts inspirations into a heart, the first He gives is obedience.

You do not receive true remedies by your choice nor through sensible feeling, but through obedience and by reason.

What greater austerity can there be than to keep one's will in subjection and continual obedience?

[Denise]

The devil does not fear austerity but holy obedience.

If, before my body bows to my superior, I have not made an act of inward reverence by humbly willing to submit to him, at least let me take care that this willing reverence accompany the outward gesture.

The obedience which you pay to the doctor when ill is extremely agreeable to God.

[Denise]

In proportion to our affection and esteem for the maker of the law, is the exactness of our observance of it.

Do not look into the face of one who governs you, but into the face of God who has so ordained it.

Rest from obedience, and your repose is more meritorious and more pleasing to God than voluntary labor.