Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.

Power ... is the supreme end for all those who have not understood.

One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.

It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls to despair at the first onslaught of affliction.

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

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.

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.