It is human misery and not pleasure which contains the secret of the divine wisdom.
Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this incomparable agony, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion. Nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed.
The Our Father contains all possible petitions; we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it. It is to prayer what Christ is to humanity.
The word 'revolution' is a word for which you kill, for which you die, for which you send the labouring masses to their deaths; but which does not contain any content.
Capitalism has brought about the emancipation of collective humanity with respect to nature. But this collective humanity has itself taken on with respect to the individual the oppressive function formerly exercised by nature.
If it were conceivable that in obeying God one should bring about one's own damnation whilst in disobeying him one could be saved, I should still choose the way of obedience.
Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad , the invention of geometry were not, for the people through whom they were brought into being and made available to us, occasions for the manifestation of personality.
One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love - to serve the loved one without his knowing it - is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism.
One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.
It is not the cause for which men took up arms that makes a victory more just or less, it is the order that is established when arms have been laid down.
As for the spirit of poverty, I do not remember any moment when it was not in me, although only to that unhappily small extent compatible with my imperfection. I fell in love with Saint Francis of Assisi as soon as I came to know about him. I always believed and hoped that one day Fate would force upon me the condition of a vagabond and a beggar which he embraced freely. Actually I felt the same way about prison.
Every kind of reward constitutes a degradation of energy.
To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.
Whoever is uprooted himself uproots others. Whoever is rooted himself doesn't uproot others.
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.
It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste.
There are only two sorts of greatness: true greatness, which is of a spiritual order, and the old, old lie of world conquest. Conquest is an ersatz greatness.
Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.
In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.
The whole of our civilization is founded on specialization, which implies the enslavement of those who execute to those who coordinate.
The lure of quantity is the most dangerous of all.
Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.
Attachment is a manufacturer of illusion and whoever wants reality ought to be detached.
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.
The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded upon the spirituality of work.
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