hosea on Growth

No, it is not yours to open buds into blossoms. Shake the bud, strike it; it is beyond your power to make it blossom. Your touch soils it, you tear its petals to pieces and strew them in the dust. ...

One saint used to say that she was the type of woman who advances more rapidly when she is drawn by love than when driven by fear. She was perceptive enough to know that we are all that type of person...