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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

If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Believe Else Everything Fear Less One Opinion Persecution Thing
Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Commit Crime Grow Increase Like Old Penalize
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
The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‘renouncing’ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‘happy’ or ‘unhappy’ in the usual meaning of the words.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Consist Live Longer Mak Mind More One Own Renounce Response Self True
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
How great is the mystery of the first cells which were one day animated by the breath of our souls! How impossible to decipher the welding of successive influences in which we are forever incorporated! In each one of us, through matter, the whole history of the world is in part reflected.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Animate Breath Cell Day First Great Mystery One Our Soul
Mankind, the spirit of the earth, the synthesis of individuals and peoples.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Earth Individual Mankind People Person Spirit Synthesis
What I cry out for, like every being, with my whole life and all my earthly passion, is something very different from an equal to cherish: it is a God to adore.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Being Cry Different Earthy Equal Every Life Like Out Passion Something Whole
The problem of evil, that is to say the reconciling of our failures, even the purely physical ones, with creative goodness and creative power, will always remain one of the most disturbing mysteries of the universe for both our hearts and our minds.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Creative Evil Failure Goodness One Our Physics Power Problem Purely Reconcile Say That
We shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Discover God History Man Second Shall Time
The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Joint Know Observe Product Universe
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
Surely the wake left behind by mankind’s forward march reveals its movement just as clearly as the spray thrown up elsewhere by the prow.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

All Behind Clearly Elsewhere Forward Making March Movement Prow Reveal Spray Surely Thrown Wake
A Religion of Evolution: that, when all is said and done, is what Man needs ever more explicitly if he is to survive and ‘superlive,’ as soon as he becomes conscious of his power to ultra-hominize himself and of his duty to do so.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Ail Done Evolution Explicitly Man More Need Religion Superlative Survive
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
Through fidelity, we situate ourselves and maintain ourselves in the hands of God so exactly as to become one with them in their action.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Become Exact Exactly Fidelity God Hand Maintain One Ourselves Situate Them Thought