QUOTATION: Sanctification

My obligation to aim at sanctification at all costs must be ever present in my mind, but it must be a serene and tranquil preoccupation, not wearisome and overmastering.

--Pope St. John XXIII, Journal of a Soul

QUOTATION: Tranquility of the Soul

You know that on a serene night, when the lake is calm, its waters unrippled by a breath of wind, the sky is so well shadowed in it, with all the stars, that looking down, we see the beauty of the heavens there as well as if we raised our eyes on high. In like manner, when our soul is tranquil, unagitated by the winds of superfluous care, unevenness of disposition, or inconstancy of mind, it is well-suited to bear an image of Our Lord.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Tranquility and Wisdom

Thinking is associated rather with repose. This Aristotle himself teaches in Book VII of the Physics, where he says that if a man is to become wise he must first achieve an inward tranquility; which is why the young and the restless are not, as a rule, wise. Wisdom and prudence are acquired, says Aristotle, by one who is content to sit down and be quiet.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, I, lect. VIII, 125.

QUOTATION: Tranquility

It is necessary before all things to obtain tranquility, not because it is the mother of contentment, but because it is the daughter of the love of God and of the resignation of our own will.

--St. Francis de Sales