There were a host of people who viewed my rejection of National Socialism as exaggerated and who perceived my sharp tone as un-Austrian. Even many Austrians whose political views were relatively good found my stance too abrupt and not in keeping with Austrian sensibilities.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

Dietrich von Hildebrand Quotes

Beauty kindles love, and only the one who remains captivated by it, only the one who is intoxicated by it, only the one who remains a lover while he is investigating its essence, can hope to penetrate its essence.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

The great mystery of our metaphysical situation, that God is nearer to us than we are ourselves, is manifest in the fact that we cannot even be wholly ourselves – in the sense of individuality as a unique divine thought – until we are reborn in Christ.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand
Individuality

There are really no serious arguments for communion in the hand. But there are the most gravely serious kinds of arguments against it.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

The way to attain the virtue of mercy lies in our constant awareness of being encompassed by mercy.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

Love is not concerned with a person’s accomplishments, it is a response to a person’s being: This is why a typical word of love is to say: I love you, because you are as you are.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

Humility involves the full knowledge of our status as creatures, a clear consciousness of having received everything we have from God.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

For, just as love embodies the life of all virtues and expresses the inmost substance of all holiness, humility is the precondition and basic presupposition for the genuineness, the beauty, and the truth of all virtue.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

Happiness is love’s outcome, never its motive. Where someone is loved he is an end in himself and certainly not a means toward something else. It is therefore of love’s essence, wherever it is found, that the loved one seem precious, beautiful, and worthy of love.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

The Liturgy is Christ praying.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

Love alone brings a human being to full awareness of personal existence. For it is in love alone that man finds room enough to be what he is.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

The soldier of Christ is obligated to fight against sin and error. His battle against the Antichrist is prompted by his loved for Christ, and for the salvation of souls. He fights this battle for the salvation of those who have gone astray. His attitude is one of true love. But those who flee from the inevitable battle, and treat irenically those who have gone astray, obfuscating their error and playing down their revolt against God, are, fundamentally, victims of egoism and complacency.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

Anti-Semitism was clearly not just anti-Christian and immoral but also quite foolish.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

The more our life is permeated by God, the simpler it becomes. This simplicity is defined by the inward unity which our life assumes because we no longer seek for any but one end: God. No.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

When we love somebody, whether it be a friend, a parent, a child, whether it be conjugal love or neighborly love, the beloved person always stands before us as something precious and noble in himself.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

On the other hand, every virtue and every good deed turns worthless if pride creeps into it – which happens whenever in some fashion we glory in our goodness.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand

There were a host of people who viewed my rejection of National Socialism as exaggerated and who perceived my sharp tone as un-Austrian. Even many Austrians whose political views were relatively good found my stance too abrupt and not in keeping with Austrian sensibilities.

— Dietrich von Hildebrand
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