We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.

Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.

The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.

A mind enclosed in language is in prison.

Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.

An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.

Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.

The future is made of the same stuff as the present.

There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.

A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.

A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.

Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers.

Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.

Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.

A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.