If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.

The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize.

In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people's, we do not accept them easily enough.

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

If education is beaten by training, civilization dies.

Regarding the debate about faith and works: It's like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most important.

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?