“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
“Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.”
“So our Lord God commonly gave riches to those gross asses to whom he vouchsafed nothing else.”
“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.”
“There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.”
“I am more afraid of my own heart than the Pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great Pope, Self.”
“People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.”
“An angel is a spiritual creature created by God without a body for the service of Christendom and the church.”
“My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.”
“The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven.”
“No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.”
“To gather with God's people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.”
“In our sad condition our only consolation is the expectancy of another life. Here below all is incomprehensible.”
“Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.”
“An earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs, some rulers, some subjects.”
“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.”
“You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you.”
“Some plague the people with too long sermons; for the faculty of listening is a tender thing, and soon becomes weary and satiated.”
“All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.”
“I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.”
“I shall never be a heretic; I may err in dispute, but I do not wish to decide anything finally; on the other hand, I am not bound by the opinions of men.”
“If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.”
“I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.”
“First I shake the whole [Apple] tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf.”
“I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is a gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.”
“Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of St. Peter, to many of those from whom certain hawkers of indulgences cajole money.”
“Cannons and fire-arms are cruel and damnable machines; I believe them to have been the direct suggestion of the Devil. If Adam had seen in a vision the horrible instruments his children were to invent, he would have died of grief.”
“There is no wisdom save in truth. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas about truth are changeable. Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom, only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths and depths of truth, have I been able to gather.”
“Anyone who can be proved to be a seditious person is an outlaw before God and the emperor; and whoever is the first to put him to death does right and well. Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel.”
“The Devil beget darkness; darkness beget ignorance; ignorance beget error and his brethren; error beget free-will and presumption; free-will beget works; works beget forgetfulness of God; forgetfulness beget transgression; transgression beget superstition; superstition beget satisfaction; satisfaction beget the mass-offering; the mass-offering beget the priest; the priest beget unbelief; unbelief beget hypocrisy; hypocrisy beget traffic in offerings for gain; traffic in offerings for gain beget Purgatory; Purgatory beget the annual solemn vigils; the annual vigils beget church-livings; church-livings beget avarice; avarice beget swelling superfluity; swelling superfluity beget fulness; fulness beget rage; rage beget license; license beget empire and domination; domination beget pomp; pomp beget ambition; ambition beget simony; simony beget the pope and his brethren, about the time of the Babylonish captivity.”