There is only one fault, only one: our inability to feed upon light.

In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.

We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.

Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.

[We are not] to take one step, even in the direction of what is good, beyond that to which we are irresistibly impelled by God, and this applies to action, word, and thought.

Men owe us what we imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt.

The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.