Have a great love for those who contradict and fail to love you, for in this way love is begotten in a heart that has no love. - John of the Cross

Our greatest need is to be silent before this great God with the appetite and with the tongue, for the only language he hears is the silent language of love.

The soul is purified also in this aridity of the desires from the imperfections of the other three capital sins of which I have spoken,7 envy, anger, and sloth, and acquires the opposite virtues. Softened and humbled by these aridities, by the hardships, temptations, and afflictions which in this night try it, it becomes gentle with God, with itself, and with its neighbor. It is no longer impatiently angry with itself because of its own faults, nor with its neighbor because of his; neither is it discontented or given to unseemly complaints against God because He does not sanctify it at once. As to envy, the soul is in charity with every one, and if any envy remain, it is no longer vicious as before, when the soul was afflicted when it saw others preferred to it, and raised higher; for now it yields to every one considering its own misery, and the envy it feels, if it feels any, is a virtuous envy, a desire to emulate them, which is great virtue.

Yea, if a man possess all things he cannot be content, — the greater his possessions the less will be his contentment, for the heart cannot be satisfied with possessions, but rather in detachment from all things and in poverty of spirit.