As I stood alone and forsaken, and the power of the sea and the battle of the elements reminded me of my own nothingness, and on the other hand, the sure flight of the birds recalled the words spoken by Christ: Not a sparrow shall fall on the ground without your Father: then, all at once, I felt how great and how small I was; then did those two mighty forces, pride and humility, happily unite in friendship.

One could construe the life of man as a great discourse in which the various people represent different parts of speech (the same might apply to states).

Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?

One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.

In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy.

The best news the World has ever heard came from a graveyard - Christ is risen!

Why I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heaven--in the spring at the earth.