The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State.

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.

I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.

Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.

Everything without exception which is of value in me comes from somewhere other than myself, not as a gift but as a loan which must be ceaselessly renewed.

It is only from the light which streams constantly from heaven that a tree can derive the energy to strike its roots deep into the soil. The tree is in fact rooted in the sky.

There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.