We should never allow kindness to degenerate into weakness. When we have scolded someone with just reason, we must leave the matter there, without allowing ourselves to be touched to the point of tormenting ourselves for having caused pain or at seeing one suffer and cry.

The liberty of thinking and publishing whatsoever each one likes without hindrance is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountainhead and origin of many evils.

In his life of Saint Catherine of Siena, her confessor, Saint Raymond of Capua, narrates that after her arrival in Pisa she became the guest of a certain Gherardo de' Buonconti. One day her host brought to her attention a young man of about twenty years of age, for whose good health he implored her prayers.