Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Man is a hungry being. But he is hungry for God. Behind all the hunger of our life is God. All desire is finally a desire for Him.
We need the disruption of categories that lead us to abandon the difficult, the disagreeable, and the least likely to go very far.
To hope does not mean to know the future, but rather to be open, in an attitude of spiritual childhood, to accepting it as a gift.
There are not two histories, one profane and one sacred, 'juxtaposed' or 'closely linked.' Rather there is only one human destiny.
I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.
Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.
I've never met anyone who has changed his mind or deepened his faith because he has been confronted with such angry condemnations.
Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil.
We must understand that in order 'to do', we must first learn 'to be', that is to say, in the sweet company of Jesus in adoration.
All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.
People wanted to me to describe more about what I call "the container," and then describe what the second half of life feels like.
Catholicism is a matter of the body and the senses as much as it is a matter of the mind, precisely because the Word became flesh.
I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. I would hope to act with compassion without thinking of personal gain.
Celibacy is not just a matter of not having sex. It is a way of admiring a person for their humanity, maybe even for their beauty.
[L]et us work to rid ourselves of our attacks of over-zealousness especially when it offends against respect, esteem, and charity.
Angels are wonderful and exciting, and they have the appeal of beings who will take care of us and manifest God's personal concern.
The great wisdom traditions of the world all recognize that the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed.
If God is about putting God ahead of myself then I've just quit being religious, because that's what got me into such deep trouble.
I can't see for the life of me how an attempt to understand the universe, which I believe comes from God, can alienate us from God.
Science is and should be seen as "completely neutral" on the issue of the theistic or atheistic implications of scientific results.
The idea that any law enforcement agency or person would ever know these gang members better than Homeboy Industries is impossible.
We can't get at crime unless we know what language it speaks. Otherwise, we are just suppressing the cough, not curing the disease.
Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world.
Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal of all peacemaking.
Why do humans never do as they're told? Someone should replace you all with robots. No, on second though, they shouldn't, bad idea.
The most generous choices, especially the persevering, are the fruit of profound and prolonged union with God in prayerful silence.
However one might pray - in any verbal way or completely without words - is unimportant to God. What matters is the heart's intent.
In the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.
If a man deliberately abstains from wine to such an extent that he does serious harm to his nature, he will not be free from blame.
The blessed in the kingdom of heaven will see the punishments of the damned, in order that their bliss be more delightful for them.
I'm happy if my book makes you want to kiss your family... if we can reconcile with each other no matter where we are on the globe.
There are good, God-fearing persons who still fall into certain faults, and it is better to bear with them than to be hard on them.
Whoever you are, you are human. Wherever you are, you live in the world, which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it.
The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.
To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.
The Mother of Christ, who stands at the very center of this mystery...is given as mother to every single individual and all mankind.
This is the wonderful truth, my dear friends: the Word, which became flesh two thousand years ago, is present today in the Eucharist
The journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and take responsibility for what's there: all of it.
I think it's important to remember that by the second half of our lives, we are meant to see in wholes, and no longer just in parts.
Today we need whatever methods or help we can receive to allow the Christian message to take us to a deeper level of transformation.
Beauty is the arrowhead of evangelization, the point with which the evangelist pierces the minds and hearts of those he evangelizes.
Likewise grace and glory are referred to the same genus, since grace is nothing other than a certain first beginning of glory in us.
It is a sin directly against one's neighbour, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them.
In this way, through experience they will be formed adequately, will be encouraged, and will be capable of rendering service to God.
The Glorious Virgin did not have a stain in her birth because she was santified in her mother's womb and safeguarded there by angels.
What do we know to be true about gang violence? We know we will fail if we fixate on the symptoms and not address what undergirds it.
My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy.
My writing has developed drastically . The Return of the Prodigal Son is the most important thing I've done, and my most mature book.
I have often had apparitions of hosts of serpents with heads at their tails, but not one was able to bite me; and many other visions.