Quote collection
374 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There is no greater joy for me than looking at the sky on a clear night with an attention so concentrated that all my other thoughts disappear; then one can think that the stars enter into one's soul."
"Everything without exception which is of value in me comes from somewhere other than myself, not as a gift but as a loan which must be ceaselessly renewed."
"One has only the choice between God and idolatry. There is no other possibility. For the faculty of worship is in us, and it is either directed somewhere into this world, or into another."
"It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls to despair at the first onslaught of affliction."
"The need of truth is more sacred than any other need."
"The world needs saints who have genius, just as a plague-stricken town needs doctors."
"War is the supreme form of prestige."
"Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed; the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image."
"I think that it is useless to fight directly against natural weaknesses. One has to force oneself to act as though one did not have them in circumstances where a duty makes it imperative; and in the ordinary course of life one has to know these weaknesses, prudently take them into account, and strive to turn them to good purpose; for they are all capable of being put to some good purpose."
"One should identify oneself with the universe itself. Everything that is less than the universe is subjected to suffering."
"Nothing is worse than extreme affliction which destroys the "I" from the outside, because after that we can no longer destroy it ourselves."
"One does not play Bach without having done scales. But neither does one play a scale merely for the sake of the scale."
"On reaching a certain degree of pain we lose the world."
"The simultaneous existence of opposite virtues in the soul like pincers to catch hold of God."
"All the Freudian system is impregnated with the prejudice which it makes it its mission to fight -- the prejudice that everything sexual is vile."
"Contradiction itself, far from always being a criterion of error, is sometimes a sign of truth."
"When an apprentice gets hurt, or complains of being tired, the workmen and peasants have this fine expression: "It is the trade entering his body." Each time that we have some pain to go through, we can say to ourselves quite truly that it is the universe, the order and beauty of the world, and the obedience of God that are entering our body."
"The speed with which bureaucracy has invaded almost every branch of human activity is something astounding once one thinks about it."
"Nothing is less instructive than a machine."
"It is not through the way in which someone speaks about God that I can see whether that person has passed through the crucible of Divine Love, but through the way the person speaks to me about things here on earth."