Christ himself came down and took possession of me. . . I had never foreseen the possibility of that, of a real contact, person to person, here below, between a human being and God. . . in this sudden possession of me by Christ, neither my sense nor my imagination had any part: I only felt in the midst of my suffering the presence of a love.

To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.

Money destroys human roots wherever it is able to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole motive. It easily manages to outweigh all other motives, because the effort it demands of the mind is so very much less. Nothing is so clear and so simple as a row of figures.

In solitude we are in the presence of mere matter (even the sky, the stars, the moon, trees in blossom), things of less value (perhaps) than a human spirit. Its value lies in the greater possibility of attention.

It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.

Of two men who have no experience of God, he who denies him is perhaps nearer to him than the other.

Purity is the power to contemplate defilement.