Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."

Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Law Giver.

If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful.

After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us toward is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.

If we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.

I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.

Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality.