Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive.

In vocal prayer we go to God on foot. In meditation we go to God on horseback. In contemplation we go to God in a jet.

Nothing is more destined to create deep-seated anxieties in people than the false assumption that life should be free from anxieties.

The only time laughter is wicked is when it is turned against Him Who gave it.

Communism is an aggressive religion of the species.

We can think of Lent as a time to eradicate evil or cultivate virtue, a time to pull up weeds or to plant good seeds. Which is better is clear, for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative. A person is great not by the ferocity of his hatred of evil, but by the intensity of his love for God. Asceticism and mortification are not the ends of a Christian life; they are only the means. The end is charity. Penance merely makes an opening in our ego in which the Light of God can pour. As we deflate ourselves, God fills us. And it is God’s arrival that is the important event.

Prayer begins by talking to God, but it ends by listening to Him. In the face of Absolute Truth, silence is the soul's language.