“If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.”

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

Patriotism is idolatry of the self.

Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries.

Modern life is given over to immoderation. Immoderation invades everything: actions and thought, public and private life.

To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal.

It is much easier to imagine ourselves in the place of God the Creator than in the place of Christ crucified.

Contradiction is the lever of transcendence.

Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.

There is only one fault, only one: our inability to feed upon light.

To die for God is not a proof of faith in God. To die for an unknown and repulsive convict who is a victim of injustice, that is a proof of faith in God.

Never react to an evil in such a way as to augment it.

The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.

Love: To feel with one’s whole self the existence of another being.

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.

There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.

Purity is the ability to contemplate defilement.