List of points

Turn your back on the tempter when he whispers in your ear: 'Why make life difficult for yourself?'

Get rid of those useless thoughts which, at best, are but a waste of time.

Don't waste your time and your energy — which belong to God — throwing stones at the dogs that bark at you on your way. Ignore them.

Don't put off your work until tomorrow.

Don't succumb to that disease of character whose symptoms are inconstancy in everything, thoughtlessness in action and speech scatter-brained ideas: superficiality, in short.

Mark this well: unless you react in time — not tomorrow: now! — that superficiality which each day leads you to form those empty plans (plans 'so full of emptiness') will make of your life a dead and useless puppet.

Excuses. You will always find plenty if you want to avoid your obligations. What a profusion of well-thought-out nonsense!

Don't stop to consider it. Dismiss it and do your duty.

When you bring order into your life your time will multiply, and then you will be able to give God more glory, by working more in his service.

Do your duty 'now', without looking back on 'yesterday', which has already passed, or worrying over 'to-morrow', which may never come for you.

Make good use of your time. Don't forget the fig tree cursed by our Lord. And it was doing something: sprouting leaves. Like you…

Don't tell me you have excuses. It availed the fig tree little, relates the Evangelist. that it was not the season for figs when our Lord came to it to look for them.

And barren it remained for ever.

Those who are engaged in business say that time is money. That seems little to me: for us who are engaged in affairs of souls, time is… glory!

I don't understand how you can call yourself a Christian and lead such an idle, useless life. Have you forgotten Christ's life of toil?

'It seems' — so you say — 'as if every imaginable sin were awaiting the first idle moment. Why, idleness itself must be a sin!'

He who pledges himself to work for Christ should never have a free moment, because to rest is not to do nothing: it is to relax in activities which demand less effort.