nothing more perfect

You can do nothing more salutary, sweeter, more joyful, more worthy, higher, happier, more perfect, or more blessed, than to love and praise God ardently. This I say one hundred times; this I repeat one thousand times-there is no study more sublime, no work more eminent, than to love and praise God, your Creator and Redeemer, with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole mind, and with your entire strength. Do this so long as you live, feel, and understand; accomplish this by word and work, by night and day, at morning, noon, and evening, at every hour and at every moment.

Thomas a Kempis, Vera Sapientia or True Wisdom

fear of the Lord

"'How great is he that findeth wisdom and knowledge! but there is none above him that feareth the Lord.' And the reason is that learning makes thee great in the sight of men, and virtue in the sight of God; so that if thou leadest a good life, though wilt soar even to Heaven, although thou mayest be exceedingly ignorant, whereas if thou dost not lead a good life thou wilt not go there, although thou shouldst be a perfect Solomon, but wilt be cast down to Hell with all thy grand speculations. And what will all thy learning then avail thee, if thou hast no been able to reach thy last end?"

from The Manna of the Soul by Fr. Paul Segneri