And what have you laymen made of hell? A kind of penal servitude for eternity, on the lines of your convict prisons on earth, to which you condemn in advance all the wretched felons your police have hunted from the beginning - enemies of society, as you call them. You're kind enough to include the blasphemers and the profane. What proud or reasonable man could stomach such a notion of God's justice? And when you find that notion inconvenient it's easy enough for you to put it on one side. Hell is not to love any more, Madame. Not to love any more!
Georges BernanosPurity is not imposed upon us as though it were a kind of punishment, it is one of those mysterious but obvious conditions of that supernatural knowledge of ourselves in the Divine, which we speak of as faith. Impurity does not destroy this knowledge, it slays our need for it.
Georges BernanosThe first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.
Georges BernanosFact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, He even provided a first installment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories.
Georges BernanosHave you never been moved by poor men's fidelity, the image of you they form in their simple minds? Why should you always talk of their envy, without understanding that what they ask of you is not so much your worldly goods, as something very hard to define, which they themselves can put no name to; yet at times it consoles their loneliness; a dream of splendor, of magnificence, a tawdry dream, a poor man's dream -and yet God blesses it!
Georges BernanosSuicide only really frightens those who are never tempted by it and never will be, for its darkness only welcomes those who are predestined to it.
Georges BernanosThe modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.
Georges BernanosOptimism approves of everything, submits to everything, believes everything; it is the virtue above all of the taxpayer.
Georges BernanosWhen you think of the huge uninterrupted success of a book like Don Quixote, you're bound to realize that if humankind have not yet finished being revenged, by sheer laughter, for being let down in their greatest hope, it is because that hope was cherished so long and lay so deep!
Georges BernanosWhat a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.
Georges BernanosWhen writing of oneself one should show no mercy. Yet why at the first attempt to discover one's own truth does all inner strength seem to melt away in floods of self-pity and tenderness and rising tears?
Georges BernanosI know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I don't despise it. But it can't quench pain, it slips through your soul as through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it.
Georges BernanosA thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.
Georges BernanosCivilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.
Georges BernanosLittle things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.
Georges BernanosWho are you to condemn another's sin? He who condemns sin becomes part of it, espouses it.
Georges BernanosFear, true fear, is a savage frenzy. Of all the insanities of which we are capable, it is surely the cruelest. There is naught to equal its drive, and naught can survive its thrust.
Georges BernanosGod! how is it that we fail to recognize that the mask of pleasure, stripped of all hypocrisy, is that of anguish?
Georges BernanosJustice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice?
Georges BernanosJustice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice? Let us rather call it injustice, but of a sly effective order, based entirely on cruel knowledge of the resistance of the weak, their capacity for pain, humilation and misery. Injustice sustained at the exact degree of necessary tension to turn the cogs of the huge machine-for-the-making-of-rich-men, without bursting the boiler.
Georges BernanosGod ordains that beggars should beg for greatness, as for all else, when greatness shines out of them, and they don't know it.
Georges BernanosIt is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man.
Georges BernanosThe world is eaten up by boredom. You can't see it all at once. It is like dust. You go about and never notice, you breathe it in, you eat and drink it. It is sifted so fine, it doesn't even grit on your teeth. But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands.
Georges Bernanos