The closer we are to God, to divine attributes - such as absolute truth, goodness, and beauty - the more we wonder. When we separate ourselves from truth, goodness, and beauty, we lose wonder and become cynical. The Enlightenment was basically the narrowing of our vision to a purely scientific, empirical, rationalistic worldview, screwing down the manhole covers on us so we became squinting underground creatures.

It is mercy, not justice or courage or even heroism, that alone can defeat evil.

Someone once said that if you sat a million monkeys at a million typewriters for a million years, one of them would eventually type out all of Hamlet by chance. But when we find the text of Hamlet, we don't wonder whether it came from chance and monkeys. Why then does the atheist use that incredibly improbable explanation for the universe? Clearly, because it is his only chance of remaining an atheist. At this point we need a psychological explanation of the atheist rather than a logical explanation of the universe.

Without that freedom to sin there is also no freedom to love.

We need to have the mind of a conservative and the heart of a liberal.

Put the Protestant flint and the Catholic steel together, and you will kindle a fire that will burn all around the world.

A woman has a responsibility and a privilege that a man doesnt have of given birth to another human being.