How Virtue Drives Out Vice

by Francis of Assisi

English version by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP & Ignatius C. Brady, OFM
Original Language Italian

Where there is charity and wisdom
     there is neither fear nor ignorance.
Where there is patience and humility,
     there is neither anger nor disturbance.
Where there is poverty with joy,
     there is neither covetousness nor avarice.
Where there is inner peace and meditation,
     there is neither anxiousness nor dissipation.
Where there is fear of the Lord to guard the house,
     there the enemy cannot gain entry.
Where there is mercy and discernment,
     there is neither excess nor hardness of heart.

-- from Francis and Clare: The Complete Works: The Classics of Western Spirituality, Translated by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP / Translated by Ignatius C. Brady, OFM

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How Virtue Drives