A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread. |
A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread. |
And what have you laymen made of hell? A kind of penal servitude for eternity, on the lines of your convict prisons on earth, to which you condemn in advance all the wretched felons your police have hunted from the beginning -- ''enemies of society,'' as you call them. You're kind enough to include the blasphemers and the profane. What proud or reasonable man could stomach such a notion of God's justice? And when you find that notion inconvenient it's easy enough for you to put it on one side. Hell is not to love any more, Madame. Not to love any more! |
Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses. |
Corruption of the best becomes the worst |
Fact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, He even provided a first installment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories. |
Fact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, He even provided a first installment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories. |
Faith is not a thing which one ''loses',' we merely cease to shape our lives by it. |
God ordains that beggars should beg for greatness, as for all else, when greatness shines out of them, and they don't know it. |
Have you never been moved by poor men's fidelity, the image of you they form in their simple minds? Why should you always talk of their envy, without understanding that what they ask of you is not so much your worldly goods, as something very hard to define, which they themselves can put no name to; yet at times it consoles their loneliness; a dream of splendor, of magnificence, a tawdry dream, a poor man's dream /and yet God blesses it! |
Hell, madam, is to love no longer |
Hope is a risk that must be run |
I know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I don't despise it. But it can't quench pain, it slips through your soul as through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it. |
It is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man. |
It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so. |