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

When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.

When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.

We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.

Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.

Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.