At the bottom of every human heart, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being.

The mysteries of faith, when severed from all reason, are no longer mysteries but absurdities.

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man’s mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties. Corresponding to this reality, at the center of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin.

We live in a world of unreality and dreams. To give up our imaginary position at the center, to renounce it, not only intellectually but in the imaginative part of our soul, that means to awaken to what is real and eternal, to see the true light and hear the true silence

Humility is the only permitted form of self love.

Something mysterious in this universe is an accomplice of those who love only the good.

God abandons our whole entire being to the pitiless necessity of matter and the cruelty of the devil. Creation is abandonment. He only keeps under his care that part of creation which is Himself, the uncreated part of every creature. That is the Life, the Light, the Word, the presence here below of God’s only son.

It is impossible that the whole truth should not be present at every time and every place, available for anyone who desires it.

I always believed that the instant of death is the center and the object of life. I used to think that, for those who live as they should, it is the instant when, for an infinitesimal fraction of time, pure truth, naked, certain, and eternal, enters the soul.

Christ likes us to prefer the truth to him, because before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms.

We cannot take a step toward the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us.

True faith implies great discretion, even with regard to itself. It is a secret between God and us in which we ourselves have scarcely any part.

It is necessary to uproot oneself. To cut down the tree and make of it a cross, and then to carry it every day.

Pure good from heaven only reaches the earth in imperceptible quantities, whether in the individual soul or in society.

Genius is distinct from talent, to my mind, by its deep regard and intelligence for the common life of common people.

I have sometimes told myself that if only there were a notice on church doors forbidding entry to anyone with an income above a certain figure, and a low one, I would be converted at once.

Once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder. As soon as men know they that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.

The gift of life and the gift of death are equivalent.

I have never been able to understand how it is possible for a reasonable mind to regard the Jehovah of the Bible and the Father who is invoked in the Gospel as one and the same thing.

That divine love which one touches in the depth of affliction, like Christ’s resurrection through crucifixion, that love which is the central core and intangible essence of joy, is not a consolation. It leaves pain completely intact.

We are born and grow up in falsehood. Truth only comes to us from outside, and it always comes from God…Every truth which penetrates into you and is welcomed by you was destined personally for you by God

The pure taste of the apple is as much a contact with the beauty of the universe as the contemplation of a picture by Cezanne.

Risk is an essential need of the soul. The absence of risk produces a kind of boredom which paralyses in a different way from fear, but almost as much.