We don’t ask to be eternal beings. We only ask that things do not lose all their meaning.

One only really sees with the heart.

Look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has the sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes.

Once we are bound together to our brothers by a common good that is outside us, then we can breathe. Experience teaches us that love is not to gaze at one another but to gaze in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through unity on the same rope, climbing towards the same peak.

Nothing comes of severity if there be no leanings towards a change of heart. And if there be natural leanings towards a change of heart, what need for severity?

Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility.

Even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life.