The wish to pray is a prayer in itself.

Optimism approves of everything, submits to everything, believes everything; it is the virtue above all of the taxpayer.

Fear, 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.

Have 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!

Suicide 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.

What does it matter, all is grace.

The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.