Quotes from the sentences of San Vincenzo de Paoli, thoughts extracted from the writings of the French priest who inspired some religious congregations including that of the Lazarists and the Dames of Charity.

Quotes San Vincenzo de Paoli

- We cannot guarantee eternal happiness better than by living and dying in the service of the poor in the arms of Providence.

- You will go ten times a day to visit the poor and ten times a day you will find God there.

- We assimilate the spirit of Christ so that we can work like him; since it is not all doing good, it is necessary to do it well, in imitation of our Lord, of whom it is said that he did all things well. It is not enough to fast, observe the rules, perform the functions of the Mission; you have to do it in
spirit of Jesus Christ.

- ... Christian holiness therefore consists in judging, speaking and acting in the same way in which Jesus, the eternal Wisdom of God, clothed with our humanity, has judged, spoken and worked.

- Let yourself be attracted by Our Lord. He will administer everything through you. Trust in him and, in his example, always act humbly, gently and in good faith: you will see that everything will be fine.

- God's love is high; at the center is the love of neighbor and the love of the poor; and below is the charity between you.

- Affective love proceeds from the heart. The person he loves is full of taste and tenderness, continually sees God present, finds his satisfaction in thinking of him. However, many acts of love of God, of complacency, of benevolence and other similar intimate practices of a tender heart, although very good and very desirable, they are nevertheless suspicious if they do not reach the practice of effective love.

Aphorisms San Vincenzo de Paoli

- Do not stop to look at what you are, but observe our Lord who is with you and in you, willing to work immediately as soon as you have resorted to him. And you will see that everything will be fine.

- If (the Lord) lets him do it, he will work in you and through you with the virtues of humility, sweetness, the ability to endure, patience, vigilance, prudence and charity.

- Three make more than ten when our Lord puts your hand in it, and this always does when he takes away the means to do otherwise.

Recommended readings

• Phrases of St. Dominic of Guzman: biography
• Phrases of Santa Gemma Galgani: quotes and aphorisms
• Phrases of Saint Anthony of Padua: quotes, aphorisms
• Phrases of San Filippo Neri: famous aphorisms from the writings
• Phrases of San Camillo de Lellis: quotes and thoughts

- Remember that we live in Jesus Christ through the death of Jesus Christ; and that we must die in Jesus Christ through the life of Jesus Christ; and that our life must be hidden in Jesus Christ and full of Jesus Christ; and that to die like Jesus Christ one must live like Jesus Christ.

- We do not believe in a person because he is very wise, but because we value him and love him. We will never believe in us if we do not testify love and kindness to those whom we want them to believe in us.

- When it is said that the Holy Spirit works in some person, it is meant that this Spirit, dwelling in her, gives her the same inclinations and dispositions that Jesus had on earth, and lead her to act in the same way, I do not say according to the same perfection, but according to the measure of the grace of the Spirit.

- Neither philosophy nor theology nor discourses operate in souls. Jesus Christ must be confused with us and we with him, that we act in him and he in us; that we speak like him and in his Spirit as he was in unity with his Father and preached the doctrine that taught him.

Phrases San Vincenzo de Paoli

- You must therefore empty yourself of yourself to put on Jesus Christ ... If the one who guides others, who forms them, who speaks to them, is supported only by a human spirit, those who see him will listen to him and try to imitate him they will become in all human and, however much he says or does, he will only give birth to the appearance of virtue and not depth; he will communicate the spirit from which he is animated as we see that the teachers impart their teaching and their ways of doing in the spirit of the disciples.

-…. Our Lord, imprinting his form on us through the gift of his Spirit and his grace and being united to him like the branches of the vine - we also do what He has done on earth: I want to say that we also act divine and, filled with his Spirit, we generate children to our Lord.

- St. Paul says that through baptism we are clothed in Jesus Christ (Gal 3:27). Now what happens in us when we take the form of mortification, patience, humility etc.? We shape Jesus Christ in us.And all those who strive to practice Christian virtues can say: "It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me".

- Ordinarily we are deceived by the appearance of the good as it appears to human reason, which never or rarely reaches the divine one. I have told you other times that the things of God do themselves and that true wisdom consists in following Providence step by step.

- Oh, if God did us the grace to get used to never judging according to human reasoning because it never reaches the truth, it never reaches God, never the divine reasons, never. If we are convinced that our simple reasoning deceives us and we act according to the Gospel, blessed be God, my brothers: let us commit ourselves to judge like him and to do what he recommended by word and example.

- Each one is firmly founded on this truth, which the teaching of Jesus Christ can never deceive, while the doctrine of the world is always deceptive.

- What has the Son of God done? He left the bosom of the eternal Father, a place of his peace and glory. And for what to do? To descend among us men to earth, to instruct them with his words and examples, to detach them from the slavery in which they had fallen and to free them. To accomplish this he donated everything to the blood. So we too must not stick to anything: neither comfort, nor comfort. Let us abandon everything to serve God and neighbor.

- Our Lord Jesus Christ is the true model, like a large invisible picture on which all our gestures must take shape.