Love in fact is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of content and become mere illusions.

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.

The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis, but first of all by living. For until we have begun to live our prudence has no material to work on. And until we have begun to fail we have no way of working out our success.

Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God.

Violence is essentially wordless. and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.

The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and divisive. A life of prayer is basically a very simple life. This simplicity, however, is the result of asceticism and effort: it is not a spontaneous simplicity.

We love the things we pretend to laugh at.