matters. Do you think, my daughters, that it is an easy matter to have to do business with the world, to live in the world, to engage in the affairs … - Teresa of Ávila

For the devil does not allow a single bad habit to disappear and the very weakness of our mortal nature destroys the virtues in us.

It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or mother was, or from what country he came? Though that is a great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are — those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty. All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond and in the outer wall of the castle – that is to say in these bodies of ours.

Our intellects, no matter how sharp, can no more grasp this than they can comprehend God.