Quotes from bernanos georges iii

With the decline or disappearance of other powers, the priest, even though appearing so intimately integrated into the life of society, has become a more singular and unclassifiable being than any of those old magicians the ancient world used to keep locked up like sacred animals in the depths of its temples, existing in the intimacy of the gods alone.

The discreet slaughter of fifteen or twenty wretched people per day will not prevent tramways from running to schedule, cafés from being full, or churches resounding with the Te Deum.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

The most dangerous of our calculations are those we call illusions.

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?

I don't think we can ever learn much from ultra-sensitive, shifty faces, skilled in disguise, that hide themselves in lust, as beasts hide to die.

What can God find to say to those who, of their own free will, of their own weight incline towards sadness and turn instinctively towards the night?

Fear, true fear, is a savage frenzy. Of all the insanities of which we are capable, it is surely the cruelest. There is naught to equal its drive, and naught can survive its thrust.

Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.

Bad dreams are a heavy weight to carry.

Void fascinates those who daren't look into it. They throw themselves in, for fear of falling.

My secret demon is called: What's the use?

Hell is not to love any more, madame. Not to love any more!

Money-crimes have an abstract quality. History is laden with the victims of gold, but their remains are odourless.