Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.

For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.

A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a symptom of meagerness.

People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind.

No one has a right to happiness.

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.