In what concerns divine things, belief is not appropriate. Only certainty will do. Anything less than certainty is unworthy of God.

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.

One should identify oneself with the universe itself. Everything that is less than the universe is subjected to suffering.

If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.

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

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

Today it is not nearly enough to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent.