Poverty is a strange and elusive thing. ... I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter. Poverty is an elusive thing, and a paradoxical one. We need always to be thinking and writing about it, for if we are not among its victims its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.

A 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' becomes again another dictator.

Two years ago, I was saying as I planted seeds in the garden, "I must believe in these seeds, that they fall into the earth and grow into flowers and radishes and beans." It is a miracle to me because I do not understand it. The very fact that they use glib technical phrases does not make it any less a miracle, and a miracle we all accept. Then why not accept God's miracles?

It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight.

There could be a 'community of communities' rather than a state. They would be united in some way but without any governing body. It would be made up of unions, credit unions instead of banks. There would be no more lending at interest. There would be no more money lenders.

The only way to live in any true security is to live so close to the bottom that when you fall you do not have far to drop, you do not have much to lose.

True obedience is a matter of love, which makes it voluntary, not compelled by fear or force.