To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.

Just as a person who is always asserting that he is too good-natured is the very one from whom to expect, on some occasion, the coldest and most unconcerned cruelty, so when any group sees itself as the bearer of civilization this very belief will betray it into behaving barbarously at the first opportunity.

The authentic and pure values, truth, beauty, and goodness, in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. Teaching should have no aim but to prepare, by training the attention, for the possibility of such an act. All the other advantages of instruction are without interest.

Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.

Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.

We have to endure the discordance between imagination and fact. It is better to say, “I am suffering,” than to say, “This landscape is ugly.

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