I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

God’s mercy and grace give me hope – for myself, and for our world.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

I believe in that old adage that ‚as goes California, so goes the country.‘

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

Forgiveness is God’s command.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

A man’s character is his guardian divinity.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

It’s a mystery. That’s the first thing that interests me about the idea of God. If there is one, it’s mysterious and powerful and awesome to even consider the concept, and you have to take it seriously.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room.

If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.

Who, being loved, is poor?

To bear means to support the weight of that which is held. It is a sacred trust to bear the priesthood, which is the mighty power and authority of God.

I don’t think you ever really know what all you’re doing, so you have to act on faith.

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.

One cannot really be a Catholic and grown up.

God’s mercy is fresh and new every morning.

What we live by we die by.

Faith is easy; I think people complicate it.

A useless life is an early death.

I believe in singing.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

I tried being reasonable, I didn’t like it.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

This thing comes to me, not by the hearing of the ear, but by my own personal experience: I know of a surety that Jesus manifests Himself unto His people as He doth not unto the world.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

Every child that isn’t born, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, has the face of the Lord.

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.

There are four Powers: memory and intellect, desire and covetousness. The two first are mental and the others sensual. The three senses: sight, hearing and smell cannot well be prevented; touch and taste not at all.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

I believe that the greatest form of prayer is praise to God.

Every day that goes by puts us closer to the day when Christ will return.

What’s right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity – intellect and resources – to do some thing about them.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.