We put pride into everything like salt. We like to see that our good works are known. If our virtues are seen, we are pleased; if our faults are perceived, we are sad. I remark that in a great many people; if one says anything to them, it disturbs them, it annoys them. The saints were not like that - they were vexed if their virtues were known, and pleased that their imperfections should be seen.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the contrast between human pride in virtue and the humility seen in true saints regarding their imperfections.
In this quote, John Vianney reflects on the nature of pride and humility. He points out that most people take pride in their virtues and seek recognition for their good deeds, while feeling upset when their faults are noticed. In contrast, he suggests that true saints are inclined to remain humble, finding discomfort in the acknowledgment of their virtues while being accepting of their flaws. This serves as a reminder that genuine humility involves recognizing and embracing one's imperfections over seeking validation for one's strengths.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a discussion on humility at a church service.
Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.
Oh, how I like those little mortifications that are seen by nobody, such as rising a quarter of an hour sooner, rising for a little while in the night to pray!
It is not necessarily those lands which are the most fertile or most favored in climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long struggle of adaptation between man and his environment has brought out the best qualities of both.
Wherever man exists, he finds the need to redesign, to recreate the world. A more beautiful world, purer, sweeter smelling and more colorful. A garden is probably the spot where the hopes for civilization are best captured. In fact, man defines himself by his garden. My Grandmother standing wordless fifteen minutes Between rows of loganberries, clippers poised in her hand.
The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?
To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.
I would only believe in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall. Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
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