The world needs saints who have genius, just as a plague-stricken town needs doctors.

We must love all facts, not for their consequences, but because in each fact God is there present.

Nothing is worse than extreme affliction which destroys the "I" from the outside, because after that we can no longer destroy it ourselves.

The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.

Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think ofhimself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this.

The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible.

We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them.