black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

From a purely positivist point of view, man is the most mysterious and disconcerting of all the objects met with by science.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

To say that Christ is the term and motive force of evolution, to say that he manifests himself as ‘evolver,’ is implicitly to recognize that he becomes attainable in and through the whole process of evolution.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Christ Evolution Force Motive Say Term
The facts tell us that no religious Faith releases – or ever has released at any moment in History – a higher degree of warmth, a more intense dynamism of unification than the Christianity of our own day – and the more Catholic it is, the truer my words.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Fact Faith History Moment No Release Religious Tell
Purity, in spite of outward appearances, is essentially an active virtue, because it concentrates God in us and on those who are subject to our influence.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Appearance Essential Influence Outward Purity Subject Virtue
Being happy is a matter of personal taste.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Being Happy Matter Personal Taste
Let man live at a distance from God, and the universe remains neutral or hostile to him. But let man believe in God, and immediately all around him the elements, even the irksome, of the inevitable organize themselves into a friendly whole, ordered to the ultimate success of life.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Distance God Him Hostile Let Live Man Neutral Remain Universe
Death surrenders us totally to God: it makes us enter into him; we must, in return, surrender ourselves to death with absolute love and self-abandonment since.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Death Enter God Him Love Must Return Surrender Totally
I don’t mean the ironic and disillusioned smile of my grandfather, but the triumphant smile of the person who knows that he will survive, or that at least he will be saved by what seems to be destroying him.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Destroy Disillusioned Grandfather Ironic Person Seem Smile Triumphant
The profoundly ‘atomic’ character of the universe is visible in everyday experience, in raindrops and grains of sand, in the hosts of the living, and the multitude of stars; even in the ashes of the dead.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Atomic Character Everyday Experience Profound Universe Visible
Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world… Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Affinity Draw Element Link Love Together World
Humanity is still advancing; and it will probably continue to advance for hundreds of thousands of years more, always on condition that we know how to keep the same line of advance as our ancestors towards ever greater consciousness and complexity.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Advance Always Condition Continue Humanity Hundred More Probably Still Thousand Year
Man can be understood only by ascending from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. In other words, he is first of all a cosmic problem.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Ascending Biology Chemistry Geology Man Physics Understand
Personal success or personal satisfaction are not worth another thought if one does achieve them, or worth worrying about if they evade one or are slow in coming. All that is really worth while is action – faithful action, for the world, and in God.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Another Archive Personal Satisfaction Success Them Thought Worry Worth
Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Centre Create Dissociate Gradual Humanity Most People Person Primitae State Survive Work
However far back I go into my childhood, nothing seems to me more characteristic of, or more familiar in, my interior economy than the appetite or irresistible demand for some ‘Unique all-sufficing and necessary reality.’
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Back Characteristic Childhood Familiar Far Go However Into More Nothing Seems
The pagan loves the earth in order to enjoy it and confine himself within it; the Christian in order to make it purer and draw from it the strength to escape from it.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Confine Earth Enjoy Himself Love Order Pagan Withing
This note, which is essential to every form of mysticism, has even penetrated them so deeply that we find ourselves falling under a spell simply by uttering the names of their Gods.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Essential Mysticism Name God Note Ourselves Penesterate Utter