"You have chosen the love of Jesus Christ. Well, then, He must be your law, your model, your centre, and your end! To live for Him, you must live of Him and by Him. This demands that we should declare war against the human ego, against self-love; that we must clothe ourselves with the strength [...]
"Man is faced by two laws: the love of God and the love of self. These two loves are forever at war. One of the two must be obeyed. A choice must be made of one or the other. Neutrality is impossible. An habitually virtuous life does not end the combat. We are a balance. [...]
"If what you have commenced well by grace you finish by self-love, it becomes worthless as far as recompense is concerned. So, venial sin renders good things bad. It looks out for them in order eventually to destroy them. We are then, like the laborer who sees the hail destroying in the twinkling of an [...]
"Now self-love is a restless, anxious, overeager love, and so the work done on its behalf is troubled, vexatious, and unsatisfactory; whereas the Love of God is calm, peaceful, and tranquil, and so the work done for its sake, even in worldly things, is gentle, trustful, and quiet." Source: St. Francis de Sales, Introduction [...]
"Beware that you be not deceived by self-love, for sometimes it counterfeits the Love of God so cleverly that you may mistake one for the other. To avoid this, and to prevent a due care for your temporal interests from degenerating into avarice, it is needful often to practice a real poverty amid the riches [...]