I did dream of it, chiefly because ‘all things are lawful.’ That was quite right what you taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there’s no everlasting God, there’s no such thing as virtue, and there’s no need of it.
Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one. For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognises that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime.
There are three powers, three powers alone, able to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent rebels for their happiness-those forces are miracle, mystery and authority.
The monks used to say that he was more drawn to those who were more sinful, and the greater the sinner the more he loved him.
A dead man has no age.
I want to be there when every one suddenly understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are built by this longing, and I am a believer.
If the suffering of children goes to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.
For the secret of human existence lies not only in living, but in knowing what to live for.
But... that’s absurd!′ he cried, flushing. ‘Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him- as you meant it to be.
Precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the hearth knows how to find what is precious.
I don’t need you to tell me I’m not well, though I don’t really know what’s wrong with me; I think I’m five times healthier than you are.
The flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.
A dull animal rage boiled within him.
But when he know that he is not only worse than all those in the world, but is also guilty before all people, on behalf of all and for all, for all human sins, the world’s and each person’s, only then will the goal of our unity be achieved.
The harmonious man, it needs to be said, hardly exists at all; out of many tens, even hundreds of thousands perhaps one or two at most are encountered, and even then in rather feeble versions.
So a man will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear.
This is not it, this is not it! No, this is not it at all!
Humanity will find in itself the power to live for virtue even without believing in immortality. It will find it in love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity.
Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men’s souls out of their solitude and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die.
The marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit is to man.