If I ever see that soul I have set thee over on his knees on account of his misery I shall fling thee on the spot into the bottomless pit.

And if any of you shall anywhere discover a man--and there are such men--a man who forgets his misery through always thinking and speaking about it, only keep him in his pulpit, and off his knees, and no man so safe for hell as he.

There are fools, and there are double-dyed fools, and that man is the chief of them.

Give him his fill of sin and misery; let him luxuriate himself in sin and misery; only, keep him there, and I will not forget thy most excellent service to me.
Make all their hearts, so Lucifer summed up, as he dismissed his obsequious devils, make all their several hearts each a warehouse, a shop, a farm, a pulpit, a library, a nursery, a supper-table, a chamber of wantonness--let it be to each man just after his own heart.

Only, keep--as you shall answer for it,--keep faith and hope and charity and innocence and patience and especially prayerfulness out of their hearts.
And when this my counsel is fulfilled, and when the pit closes over thy charge, I shall pay thee thy wages, and promote thee to honour.