All those who possess in its pure state the love of their neighbour and the acceptance of the order of the world, inclucing affliction-all those, even should they live and die to all appearances atheists, are surely saved.

Why is it that reality, when set down untransposed in a book, sounds false?

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.

Evil is neither suffering nor sin; it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together; sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.

A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody in it is constantly harassed and kept on edge by the interference of extraneous wills while the soul is left in cold desolate misery. What man needs is silence and warmth; what he is given is an icy pandemonium. Physical labor may be painful, but it is not degrading as such. It is not art; it is not science; it is something else, possessing an exactly equal value with art and science, for it provides an equal opportunity to reach the impersonal stage of attention.

Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity.

It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.