There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.

We have to believe that everything has a cause, as the spider spins its web in order to catch flies. But it does this before it knows there are such things as flies.

There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.

A book which, above all others in the world, should be forbidden, is a catalogue of forbidden books.

The highest level than can be reached by a mediocre but experienced mind is a talent for uncovering the weaknesses of those greater than itself.

We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.

Barbaric accuracy - whimpering humility.