Faith is primarily a process of identification; the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.
There is a radicalism in all getting, and a conservatism in all keeping. Lovemaking is radical, while marriage is conservative.
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity – the endless flow of life and death – than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.
The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.
Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.
There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment.
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.
The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
It is a strange thing that both the injurer and the injured, the sinner and he who is sinned against, should find in the mass movement an escape from a blemished life.
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.
The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies.
Somewhere between the Angels and the French lies the rest of humanity.