[God] will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of heaven as a shortcut to the nearest chemist's shop.

When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world

Christ, who said to the disciples, 'You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,' can truly say to every group of Christian friends, 'You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.'

Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake.

Repentance is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like.

I have read the Aeneid through more often than I have read any long poem.

What the soul cries out for is the resurrection of the senses. Even in this life, matter would be nothing to us if it were not the source of sensations.