[De contemptu mundi]

He does not spare kings: under him lies all power. Arts do not avail: no medicine stands against it. And when we die, I ask what follows us: hear: The ringing of bells: and the fictitious voice of many: who say: may he fare well, may his soul rest in peace. The living are permitted: to bury their corpses. They would not wish that our bodies might rise. They greedily fill their bellies with the goods left behind: and they would barely commend their soul to God with a word. Therefore it is good, O brothers, while we are still situated in this valley of miseries: to consider our life to be fading: and to flourish like the flower of the field. Today it flourishes, tomorrow it is cast into the oven: and to weigh the soul as more precious than the body: because it is perpetual: and to abstract ourselves from the snares of this world and its passing delights through good exercises and studies. Turning this over in our mind: we began to think what should be done: so that we might be withdrawn, day by day, a little from the udders of this world: which nourished us with various milk, and which until now has strongly held us bound in its iron shackles and manacles: In the end it came to our mind: that we should take up for ourselves (giving no place to idleness) the exercises that are good and acceptable to God and his mother the Virgin Mary.