Though no one would want to be sold as a slave, it is perhaps even more galling to be a sort of utility slave whom no one will buy.

The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said

I'd sooner live among people who don't cheat at cards than among people who are earnest about not cheating at cards.

God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.

I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptation. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience, etc., don't get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time...The only fatal thing is to lose one's temper and give up.

...if all we mean by our love is a craving to be loved, we are in a very deplorable state.

If human life is in fact ordered by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect a priori that his operations will often appear to us far from beneficent and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give him our confidence in spite of this.