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.

At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Intellectual adherence is never owed to anything whatsoever, for it is never in any degree a voluntary thing. Attention alone is voluntary. It alone forms the subject of an obligation.

I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.

Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence.

The beauty of the world is Christ's tender smile for us coming through matter.