To worship our false selves is to worship nothing. And the worship of nothing is hell.

The only right way: to love and serve the man of the modern world, but not simply to succumb, with him, to all his illusions about the world.

Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as if creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God.

Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism.

Zen insight is not our awareness, but Being's awareness of itself in us.

In an age where there is much talk about "being yourself," I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else.

Solitude is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient solitude to develop the inner life of the persons who compose it, they rebel and seek false solitudes.