“We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have – for their usefulness.”

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads to our transformation.

Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.

For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air.

No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.

You are made in the image of what you desire.

When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.

The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.

Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.

Perhaps I am stronger than I think.

Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.

When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?

Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false Self. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves.

May God prevent us from becoming “right-thinking men”-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.

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

Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination.

Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.

A distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man’s imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection.

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 scientist needs an artistically creative imagination.

Fanaticism is governed by imagination rather than judgment.

Do not build up obstacles in your imagination. Difficulties must be studied and dealt with, but they must not be magnfied by fear.