If it were conceivable that in obeying God one should bring about one's own damnation whilst in disobeying him one could be saved, I should still choose the way of obedience.

It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.

Justice consists in seeing that no harm is done to men. Whenever a man cries inwardly: 'Why am I being hurt?' harm is being done to him. He is often mistaken when he tries to define the harm, and why and by whom it is being inflicted on him. But the cry itself is infallible.

Modern life is given over to immoderation. Immoderation invades everything: actions and thought, public and private life.

The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

Men owe us what we imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt.