Maxims...

 

art source

Take little notice of who is with you or against you... so long as you always try to please God and write what is true. 

Love to be unknown both by yourself and by others...

Those who flatter you deceive you...

Never take a man for your example - however holy he may be - for the devil will show you his faults.

It is a great wisdom  to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, the deeds, nor the lives of others...

Show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

Allow yourself to be taught, to be corrected, to be despised... to be humbled.

Where have You hidden Yourself, O my Beloved?

For "life is so short, the path leading to eternal life so narrow, and I know the just man is scarcely saved, while the things of the world are vain and deceitful, and all comes to an end and fails like falling water. The time is uncertain, the accounting strict, perdition very easy and salvation most difficult... My life has vanished, I know well I must render an account of everything - from the beginning of my life as well as this later part - unto the last penny, when God will search Jerusalem with lighted candles, and it is already late - the day far spent - to remedy so much evil and harm..."

  Adapted from John of the Cross.