We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by a certain perfection of moral activity.

The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals, although those things are good and useful in themselves--and perhaps very badly needed in India: they want to know if we have any saints to send them.

The man of faith who has never experienced doubt is not a man of faith.

A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him.... The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him.

We stumble and fall constantly, even when we are most enlightened.

When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, then society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment and hate.

There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.