Everyone has opinions of his own, nor is this opposed to virtue. It is only the love and attachment we have to our own opinions, and the high value we set on them, which is infinitely contrary to our perfection. This is the last thing to be abandoned, and the cause why so few are perfect. - Saint Francis de Sales
This Saint succeeded in abandoning this last thing, so that he was once able to write to a friend that he had no such attachment to his own opinion as to wish anyone ill who did not follow it, and that he did not claim that his sentiments should serve as a rule to anyone.
The venerable Father John Leonardi, founder of the Regular Clerics of the Mother of God, although he was gifted with the highest degree of prudence and had brought to a successful issue many affairs of great note, nevertheless depended so much upon the advice of his subjects, nay even of the young and inexperienced among them, that he never decided on anything of importance without first hearing their opinion and gaining their approval. Often he even followed their judgment in preference to his own.
Father Suarez, though he possessed much talent and learning, often gave his books even to his pupils to be revised; and if one of them disapproved of anything, he altered it with great readiness. Saint Vincent Ferrer also had so little regard for his own opinion that he gave his writings to his companions to be reviewed, even though they were inferior to him in learning; and he did this not only when he was a student, but afterwards when a lecturer.
- text taken from A Year with the Saints, composed by an unknown Italian, translated by a member of the Order of Mercy; it has the Imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, Archdiocese of New York, New York, 21 January 1891