Learn to defend your convictions without hating your adversaries and love those who think differently from yourselves.

All my life I have followed the poetry of love in preference to the poetry of anger. I will not change now.

Why are… poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life.

One only means of salvation remains to us, that is, that Christians, in the name of love, interpose between the two camps (of rich and poor) passing like beneficent deserters from one to the other … communicating mutual charity to all, until this charity, paralyzing and stifling the egotism of both parties, and every day lessening their antipathies, shall bid the two camps arise and break down the barriers of prejudice, and cast aside their weapons of anger and march forth to meet each other, not to fight but to mingle together in one embrace, so that they may form but one fold under one pastor.

We must investigate doctrine and measures which would aim at guaranteeing for workers a correct proportion between labor and rest … and a pension for their old age.

Exploitation occurs when the master considers his workers not as a partner nor even as an assistant, but as an instrument out of which he must extract as much service as possible at the smallest possible price. Yet the exploitation of a man by another man is slavery. The worker-machine is nothing more than part of capital like the slaves of the ancients. Service becomes servitude.

Charity must never look to the past, but always to the future, because the number of its past works is still very small and the present and future miseries that it must alleviate are infinite.

The order of society is based on two virtues: justice and charity. However, justice presupposes a lot of love already, for one needs to love a man a great deal in order to respect his rights, which limit our rights, and his liberty, which hampers our liberty. Justice has its limits whereas charity knows none.

In serving the sick, you should have God alone in view. You should not be too lenient and condescending when the sick refuse to take remedies or become too insolent, yet you must beware of showing either resentment or contempt in your demeanor toward them. On the contrary, treat the sick with respect and humility, remembering that all harshness and disdain, as well as the services and the honor you render them, are directed to our Lord himself.

I knew the doubts of the present century, but all my life convinced me that there is no rest for the spirit and the heart except in the faith of the Church and under its authority.

The cause of Christian knowledge, the cause of the faith, is what I hold to the roots of my heart; and in any way I can serve it.

Our main purpose is not merely to help the poor – this is but a means to an end. Our true aim is to preserve in ourselves the Catholic Faith in all its purity and to communicate it to others through the channels of charity. Charity teaches us that when we visit the poor we gain much more than they do.

It is not a fragile stem what we need to serve as support in our earthly journey. It will be before the two wings of these angels: faith and charity.