108 Quotes by Georges Bernanos

Optimism approves of everything, submits to everything, believes everything; it is the virtue above all of the taxpayer.

When writing of oneself one should show no mercy. Yet why at the first attempt to discover one's own truth does all inner strength seem to melt away in floods of self-pity and tenderness and rising tears?

[T]he cradle is shallower than the grave.

Truth is meant to save you first. The comfort comes afterward.

The devil, you see, is that friend who never stays with us to the end.

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.

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.

The wish to pray is a prayer in itself.

You owe it to everyone you love to find pockets of tranquility in your busy world.