There is not true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude.

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

That is God's call to us - simply to be people who are content to live close to him and to renew the kind of life in which the closeness is felt and experienced.

Love is the epiphany of God in our poverty.

The only true liberty is in the service of that which is beyond all limits, beyond all definitions, beyond all human appreciation: that which is All, and which therefore is no limited or individual thing: The All is no-thing, for if it were to be a single thing separated from all other things, it would not be All.

In general, it can be said that no contemplative life is possible without ascetic self-discipline. One must learn to survive without the habit-forming luxuries which get such a hold on men today. I do not say that to be a contemplative one absolutely has to go without smoking or without alcohol, but certainly one must be able to use these things without being dominated by an uncontrolled need for them.

The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer.