We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of others and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.

In the devil's theology, the important thing is to be absolutely right and to prove that everybody else is absolutely wrong.

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance to a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being.

It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives.

I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand; but it is my shortcut to your soul.

The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with an ingot of red -hot iron: I have to pick up the incandescent metal and burn my own hand while burning the other. Hate itself is the seed of death in my own heart, while it seeks the death of the other.

Happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found.