Faith will not be restored in the West because people believe it to be useful. It will return only when they find that it is true.

It is very much easier for a rich man to invest and grow richer than for the poor man to begin investing at all. And this is also true of nations.

It is a fact of history that those who seek to withdraw from its great experiments usually end up being overwhelmed by them.

On the one hand, we are faced with the stewardship of this beautiful, subtle, incredibly delicate, fragile planet. On the other, we confront the destiny of our fellow man, our brothers. How can we say that we are followers of Christ if this dual responsibility does not seem to us the essence and heart of our religion?

if we continue with what is surely our greatest Western temptation, and think that in some way history owes us a solution, that we can, by pursuing our own most parochial self-interest, achieve in some miraculous way a consummation of world order, then we are heading not simply towards great disappointments, but towards disaster and tragedy as well.

There is no human failure greater than to launch a profoundly important endeavour and then leave it half done. This is what the West has done with its colonial system. It shook all the societies in the world loose from their old moorings. But it seems indifferent whether or not they reach safe harbour in the end.

There is no human failure greater than to launch a profoundly important endeavour and then leave it half done.