“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”

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.

Truth is sought not because it is truth but because it is good.

Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude.

A mind enclosed in language is in prison.

It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.

It is only from the light which streams constantly from heaven that a tree can derive the energy to strike its roots deep into the soil. The tree is in fact rooted in the sky.

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.