Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either.

We are always looking for a grand program of action full of great ideas, when the thing is to begin by obeying the little ideas.

That is what marriage really means; helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.

Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.

The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God.

In order to make a success of old age, one must begin it earlier, and not try to postpone it as long as possible. In the middle of life we must stop to think, to organize our existence with an eye to a still distant future, instead of allowing ourselves to be entirely sucked into the professional and social whirl. It is then that it is important to give place little by little to less external activities, less technical and more cultural, which will survive the moment of retirement.

In order to really understand, we need to listen, not reply. We need to listen long and attentively. In order to help anybody to open his heart we have to give him time, asking only a few questions, as carefully as possible in order to help him better explain his experience.