All the goods of this world...are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire that perpetually burns within us for an infinite and perfect good.

As for the spirit of poverty, I do not remember any moment when it was not in me, although only to that unhappily small extent compatible with my imperfection. I fell in love with Saint Francis of Assisi as soon as I came to know about him. I always believed and hoped that one day Fate would force upon me the condition of a vagabond and a beggar which he embraced freely. Actually I felt the same way about prison.

The speed with which bureaucracy has invaded almost every branch of human activity is something astounding once one thinks about it.

When an apprentice gets hurt, or complains of being tired, the workmen and peasants have this fine expression: "It is the trade entering his body." Each time that we have some pain to go through, we can say to ourselves quite truly that it is the universe, the order and beauty of the world, and the obedience of God that are entering our body.

Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.

Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction.

Sin is nothing else but the failure to recognize human wretchedness.