They are like a man who does his work over again; or who goes out of a city that he may enter it once more; or who lets go what he has caught in hunt… - John of the Cross

...the clearer the light is, the more it blinds and darkens the pupil of the owl; and the more we look at the sun, the greater is the darkness it causes in our vision ... in the same way, when the divine light of contemplation assails the soul that is not wholly enlightened, it causes spiritual darkness within it.

Blessed are they who, setting aside their own pleasure and inclination, consider things according to reason and justice before doing them.

Miserable man that I am, what fellowship hath my perverseness with Thy uprightness ? Thou art truly good, I wicked; Thou full of compassion, I impious; Thou holy, I miserable; Thou just, I unjust; Thou art light, lam blind; Thou art life, and I am dead; Thou art medicine, I am sick; Thou supreme truth, and I utter vanity.’ It is, therefore, supreme ignorance for anyone to think that he can ever attain to the high estate of union with God before he casts away from him the desire of natural things, and of supernatural also, so far as it concerns self-love, because the distance between them and the state of perfection is the very greatest. For Christ our Lord hath said, ‘ Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be My disciple.’ The doctrine of Christ which He came into the world to teach, is contempt of all things, that we may thereby have power to receive the reward of the Spirit of God. For he who does not withdraw himself from the things of the world, is not qualified to receive the Spirit of God in the pure transformation.