It is of quite unsuspected value to take, even for a minute or two, a complete rest, not trying to pray or think, not even to wander in reverie, but remaining quite passive and quiet in the presence of God.

Our Divine Lord’s ‘Peace be still’ has been uttered over all the billows that threaten to toss the bark.   It has inward rest whatever be the outward commotion.
Environment is a small matter to him who contemplates the Almighty.

High above all earthly, lower happiness, the blessedness of those Eight Beatitudes towers into the heaven itself.   They are white with the snows of eternity;  they give a grace, a meaning, a dignity, to all the rest of the earth over which they brood.

Flit’st thou thus midway passion’s slave and jest, 
When all so near, above, below, unchanging
Are Heaven and rest?

And all human peace is in some sort won by conflict and maintained by energy:  it is never the triumph of inertia:  it represents the victory of purpose over circumstance. 

The whole universe in which we live is arranged in such a fashion that, if we would be at all in harmony with it, we must have patience.

The true felicity of life is to be free from perturbations;  to understand our duties towards God and man;  to enjoy the present without any serious dependence upon the future.

Noisy go the small waters, silent goes the vast ocean.