One might lay down as a postulate: All conceptions of God which are incompatible with a movement of pure charity are false. All other conceptions of him, in varying degree, are true.

The supernatural virtue of justice consists of behaving exactly as though there were equality when one is the stronger in an unequal relationship.

Humility is attentive patience.

Every kind of reward constitutes a degradation of energy.

To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.

All the tragedies which we can imagine return in the end to the one and only tragedy: the passage of time.

If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.