S G

“They who live in prosperity and have no experience of adversity know nothing of the state of their souls. In the first place, tribulation opens the eyes which prosperity had kept shut. St. Paul remained blind after Jesus Christ appeared to him and during his blindness he perceived the errors in which he lived. During his imprisonment in Babylon, King Manasseh had recourse to God, was convinced of the malice of his sins, and did penance for them. And after that he was in distress. He prayed to the Lord his God and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers. The Prodigal, when he found himself under the necessity of feeding swine and afflicted with hunger. exclaimed: "I will arise and go to my father.”
― St Alphonsus Liguori

“Unlike most readers in Antiquity who read their books aloud, we have developed the convention of reading silently. This lets us read more widely but often less well, especially when what we are reading—such as the plays of Shakespeare and Holy Scripture—is a body of oral material that has been, almost but not quite accidentally, captured in a book like a fly in amber.”
― Jaroslav Pelikan, Whose Bible Is It? A Short History of the Scriptures

“LIII

Abbott Palladius said: The soul that wishes to live according to the will of Christ should either learn faithfully what it does not yet know, or teach openly what it does know. But if, when it can, it desires to do neither of these things, it is afflicted with madness. For the first step away from God is a distaste for learning, and lack of appetite for those things for which the soul hungers when it seeks God.”
― Thomas Merton OCSO

“Human life. Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain. Sum Up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations