The role of the intelligence --that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit.

Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being.

Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers.

In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.

I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.

We can only know one thing about God -- that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.

It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.

Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.

Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.

Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.