The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.

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.

Prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him...who loves us, who is near to us.

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.

...love triumphs, at least in this life, not by eliminating evil once for all, but by resisting and overcoming it anew every day.

You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again, "Solitude, solitude." And You have turned around and thrown the world in my lap. You have told me, "Leave all things and follow me," and then You have tied half of New York to my foot like a ball and chain. You have got me kneeling behind that pillar with my mind making a noise like a bank. Is that contemplation?

No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.