Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.

If you say to someone who has ears to hear: "What you are doing to me is not just," you may touch and awaken at its source the spirit of attention and love. But it is not the same with words like, "I have the right..." or "you have no right to..." They evoke a latent war and awaken the spirit of contention.

In order to obey God, one must receive his commands. How did it happen that I received them in adolescence, while I was professing atheism? To believe that the desire for good is always fulfilled - that is faith, and whoever has it is not an atheist.

Man alone can enslave man.

To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.

All sins are attempts to fill voids.

Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.