“There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.”

Stars and blossoming fruit-trees: utter permanence and extreme fragility give an equal sense of eternity.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

When 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.

The glossy surface of our civilization hides a real intellectual decadence.

Compassion directed toward oneself is true humility.

It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.

A man thinks he is dying for his country,” said Anatole France, “but he is dying for a few industrialists.” But even that is saying too much. What one dies for is not even so substantial and tangible as an industrialist.

I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.

For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation.

Love is not consolation, it is light.

God is rich in mercy. I know this wealth of his with the certainty of experience, I have touched it.

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us coming through matter.

The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.

We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.

What is dishonorably got, is dishonorably squandered.

Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.

Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

The greater the crime perpetrated by the leadership, the less likely it is that the people will ever believe their leaders to be capable of perpetrating such an event.

In my view, aiming at simplicity and lucidity is a moral duty of all intellectuals: lack of clarity is a sin, and pretentiousness is a crime.

It is the certainty of being punished and not the horrifying spectacle of public punishment that must discourage crime.

I had field experience, a vocabulary, and a criminal mind. I was a danger to myself and others.