Every rational creature, every person, and every angel has two main strengths: the power to know and the power to love.

When I say “darkness,” I mean the absence of knowing. Whatever you don’t know and whatever you’ve forgotten are “dark” to you, because you don’t see them with your spiritual eyes. For the same reason, by “cloud” I don’t mean a cloud in the sky, but a cloud of unknowing between you and God.

“Love itself is a kind of knowing.”37