Sin is nothing else but the failure to recognize human wretchedness.

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.

Life does not need to mutilate itself in order to be pure.

One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love - to serve the loved one without his knowing it - is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism.

We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

If we concentrate our attention on trying to solve a problem of geometry, and if at the end of an hour we are no nearer to doing so than at the beginning, we have nevertheless been making progress each minute of that hour in another more mysterious dimension. Without knowing or feeling it, this apparent barren affort has brought more light into the soul.