The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings.

The law is not thrust upon man; it rests deep within him, to waken when the call comes.

Here is the infallible test. Imagine yourself in a situation where you are alone, wholly alone on earth, and you are offered one of the two, books or men. I often hear men prizing their solitude but that is only because there are still men somewhere on earth even though in the far distance. I knew nothing of books when I came forth from the womb of my mother, and I shall die without books, with another human hand in my own. I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human being looking at me.

Nothing so tends to mask the face of God as religion; it can be a substitute for God himself.

The I of the basic word I-Thou is different from that of the basic word I-It.

I don't like religion much, and I am glad that in the Bible the word is not to be found.

Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture? ... I do not mean to imply that the evil are anything other than a small minority among the religious or that the religious motives of most people are in any way spurious. I mean only that evil people tend to gravitate toward piety for the disguise and concealment it can offer them.