The proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift.
A man is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility.
Where, except in the present, can the eternal be met?
He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.
I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.
Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.
If ever they remembered their life in this world it was as one remembers a dream.
It doesn’t really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist’s chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.
If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful.
Life isn’t all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.
Enemy-occupied territory – that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.
It is my opinion that a story worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.
Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair.
There might be things more terrible even than losing someone you love by death.
Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’ – or else not.
Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.
If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it that you don’t feel at home there?
Music. A meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience.
When they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours.
The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred.