For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation.

Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.

Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.

The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.

It may be that vice, depravity, and crime are nearly always, or even perhaps always, in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at.

Christians ought to suspect that affliction is the very essence of creation. To be a created thing is not necessarily to be afflicted, but it is necessarily to be exposed to affliction. ... Affliction is the surest sign that God wishes to be loved by us; it is the most precious evidence of His tenderness.