“To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious.”

“[As a young man] I sought thrills! I found them in Christ. I looked for something that would bring perfect joy! I found it in Christ. I looked for something that would bring pleasure and that would satisfy the deepest longing of my heart! I found it in Christ. And my life has never been the same.”

“Self-worth and net worth are not the same.” 

“The happiness you feel is in direct proportion to the love you give.”

“The terrain enforced its own rhythms.”

“His education had been neither scientific nor classical—merely “Modern.” The severities both of abstraction and of high human tradition had passed him by: and he had neither peasant shrewdness nor aristocratic honour to help him. He was a man of straw, a glib examinee in subjects that require no exact knowledge (he had always done well on Essays and General Papers) and the first hint of a real threat to his bodily life knocked him sprawling.”

“You probably know that you are not the only man who has had to sacrifice immediate monetary remuneration for the sake of gathering knowledge, for in truth your experience has been that of every philosopher from the time of Socrates down to the present.”

“You cannot make God stop loving you, because his love is based on who he is, not what you do. It is based on his character, not your conduct.”

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.”

“A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.”

“Do something. Successful achievers wake up in the morning and go to bed in the night. In between their waking up and going to bed is occupied with action, action, action and action.”

“Quand la défaite surgit, acceptez-la comme le signal que vos plans ne sont pas cohérents, reconstruisez ces plans, et reprenez la voile une fois de plus vers vos aspirations. Si vous abandonnez avant d’avoir atteint votre but, vous êtes un “lâcheur”.”

“There's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter.”

“There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And Itry licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. The white mouse and the black mouse – day and night – are gnawing at the branch from which I am hanging. I can see the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tastes sweet. I can see only one thing; the inescapable dragon and the mice, and I cannot tear my eyes away from them. And this is no fable but the truth, the truth that is irrefutable and intelligible to everyone.

“The essence of love is not what we think or do or provide for others, but how much we give of ourselves. Men, in particular, often don’t understand this. Many have said to me, “I don’t understand my wife and kids. I provide everything they need. What more could they want?” They want you! Your eyes, your ears, your time, your attention, your presence, your focus”