‘The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant.’
G.K. Chesterton
‘He may even go mad; but he is going mad for the love of sanity. But the modern student of ethics, even if he remains sane, remains sane from an insane dread of insanity.’
G.K. Chesterton
‘Christianity has not failed–it has been found difficult and left untried.’
G.K. Chesterton
‘It is just as easy to think in continents as to think in cobble-stones. The difficulty comes in when we seek to know the substance of either of them.’
G.K. Chesterton
‘Bad is so bad, that we cannot but think good an accident; good is so good, that we feel certain that evil could be explained.’
G.K. Chesterton
‘Give something, however small, to the one in need. For it is not small to one who has nothing. Neither is it small to God, if we have given what we could.’
St. Gregory Nazianzen
‘There is no other way of knowing God than by living in him.’
St. Gregory of Nazianzus
‘There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first possible and then impossible, even Jesus Christ our Lord.’
St. Ignatius of Antioch
‘Nothing is more precious than peace, by which all war, both in heaven and earth, is brought to an end.’
St. Ignatius of Antioch
‘It would be too tedious, in a work like this, to go through the succession lists of all the Churches. We shall, therefore, take just one, the greatest, most ancient Church, the Church known to all, the Church founded and established in Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul. By showing that the tradition which she received from the apostles, the faith which she proclaims to men, has come down to us through the succession of bishops, we confute all those who, in whatever manner, . . . set up conventicles. With this Church, because of its more excellent origin, every Church (in other words, the faithful everywhere) must agree.’
St. Irenaeus
‘And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.’
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King)
‘Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you.’
St. Jerome
‘I repeat: to know how to say the Our Father, and to know how to put it into practice, this is the perfection of the Christian life.’
St. John XXIII
‘For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force…it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice.’
St. John Chrysostom
‘Do you wish to honor the Body of the Savior? Do not despise it when it is naked. Do not honor it in church with silk vestments while outside it is naked and numb with cold. He who said, “This is my body,” and made it so by his word, is the same that said, “You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.” Honor him then by sharing your property with the poor. For what God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls.’
St. John Chrysostom
‘Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.’
St. John Chrysostom
‘As long as this attachment remains, it is impossible to make progress in perfection, even though the imperfection be very small. It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin thread or by a cord. Even if it is tied by a thread, the bird will be held bound… it will be impeded from flying as long as it does not break the thread.’
St. John of the Cross
‘Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me. What do you ask, then, and seek, my soul? Yours is all of this, and all is for you. Do not engage yourself in anything less or pay heed to the crumbs that fall from your Father’s table. Go forth and exult in your Glory! Hide yourself in it and rejoice, and you will obtain the supplications of your heart.’
St. John of the Cross
‘With what procrastinations do you wait,
since from this very moment you can love God in your heart?’
St. John of the Cross
‘Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.’
St. John Paul II
‘Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.’
St. John Paul II
‘Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.’
St. John Paul II
‘From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can survive.’
St. John Paul II
‘To claim the right to abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others.’
St. John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae n. 20)
‘There is no delight in owning anything unshared.’
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
‘Crosses, contempt, sorrows and afflictions are the real treasures of the lovers of Jesus Christ crucified.’
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
‘I was to cling to nothing, to empty and despoil myself of everything, to love nothing but Him, in Him and for the love of Him, to see in all things naught but Him and the interests of His glory in complete forgetfulness of self.’
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
‘Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.’
St. Maximilian Kolbe
‘Alms-giving heals the soul’s incensive power; fasting withers sensual desire; prayer purifies the intellect and prepares it for the contemplation of created beings. For the Lord has given us commandments which correspond to the powers of the soul.’
St. Maximus the Confessor (400 Texts on Love n.79, from the Philokalia)
‘Those who still fear the war against the passions and dread the assaults of invisible enemies must keep silent in their struggle for virtue they must not enter into disputes with their enemies but through prayer must entrust all anxiety about themselves to God. To them apply the words of Exodus: ‘The Lord will fight for you, and you must be silent’ (Exod. 14:14).’
St Maximus the Confessor
‘A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself.’
Neils Bohr
‘Any trial whatever that comes to you can be conquered by silence.’
Abbot Pastor (Desert Father)
‘Property is theft.’
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
‘I was born poor, I have lived poor, and I wish to die poor.’
St. Pius X
‘The reason is that this is our original natural state and we used to be whole creatures: “love” is the name for the desire and pursuit of wholeness.’
Plato (The Symposium)
‘Remember that every government service, every offer of government-financed security, is paid for in the loss of personal freedom. Whenever a voice is raised telling you to let the government do it, analyze very carefully to see whether the suggested service is worth the personal freedom which you must forgo in return for such service.’
Ronald Reagan
‘You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.’
Rumi
‘The wound is the place where the light enters you.’
Rumi
‘Love is the bridge between you and everything.’
Rumi
‘This is a subtle truth. Whatever you love, you are.’
Rumi
‘Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds.’
St. Teresa of Avila
‘The day on which God has unrestricted power over our hearts we shall also have unrestricted power over his.’
St. Teresa Benedicta of the cross (Edith Stein)
‘The deepest essence of love is self-giving.’
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
‘Work without love is slavery.’
St. (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta
‘There is much suffering in the world — very much. And this material suffering is suffering from hunger, suffering from homelessness, from all kinds of diseases, but I still think the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one.’
St. (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta
‘Many people are talking about the poor, but very few people talk to the poor.’
St. (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta
‘For me prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look towards Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.’
St. Therese of Lisieux
‘One evening, not knowing how to tell Jesus how much I loved Him and longed for Him to be served and honoured everywhere, I thought with sadness that not a single act of love ever ascended from the gulfs of hell. I cried that I would gladly be plunged into that realm of blasphemy and pain so that even there He could be loved forever. Of course that could not glorify Him, for all He wants is our happiness, yet when one’s in love one says a thousand silly things. This didn’t mean that I did not want to be in heaven, but for me heaven meant love and, in my ardour, I felt that nothing could separate me from Him who had captivated me.’
St. Therese of Lisieux (Story of a Soul, chapter 5)
‘He has forgotten your infidelities long ago. Only your desires for perfection remain to make His heart rejoice. I implore you, don’t drag yourself to His feet ever again. Follow that “first impulse which draws you into His arms.”‘
St. Therese of Lisieux
‘For those who love Him, and after each fault come to ask pardon by throwing themselves into His arms, Jesus trembles with joy.’
St. Therese of Lisieux
‘Ah! my brother, how the goodness of Jesus, His merciful love, are so little known! It is true that to enjoy these riches we must be humbled and recognise our nothingness, and that is what so many are not willing to do.’
St. Therese of Lisieux
‘Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.’
Theodore Roosevelt
‘Forsake all and you shall find all. Renounce desire and you will find peace.’
Thomas À Kempis
‘Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.’
St. Thomas Aquinas
‘All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.’
St. Thomas Aquinas
‘Man should not consider his material possession his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need.’
St. Thomas Aquinas
‘Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea.’
St. Thomas Aquinas
‘Love is delight in what is good; the proper object of love is the good. To love is to wish good to someone.’
St. Thomas Aquinas
‘What does it take to become a saint? Will it.’
St Thomas Aquinas
As A Little Child 