Quotes from Georges Bernanos

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.

Hell, Madame, is to love no longer.

No one discovers the depths of his own loneliness.

Hope is a risk that must be run.

Purity is not imposed upon us as though it were a kind of punishment, it is one of those mysterious but obvious conditions of that supernatural knowledge of ourselves in the Divine, which we speak of as faith. Impurity does not destroy this knowledge, it slays our need for it.

Hell, madam, is to love no longer.

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.

Justice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice? Let us rather call it injustice, but of a sly effective order, based entirely on cruel knowledge of the resistance of the weak, their capacity for pain, humiliation and misery.

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.

My parish is bored stiff; no other word for it.  Like so many others! We can see them being eaten up by boredom, and we can't do anything about it.  Someday perhaps we shall catch it ourselves—become aware of the cancerous growth within us.  You can keep going a long time with that in you.

Ô maudite enfance, qui ne veut pas mourir !

Those who still profess the rule of hope, teach optimism only by force of habit, without believing in what they say.

Nothing but a little savage...

Well, as I was saying, the world is eaten up by boredom. To perceive this needs a little preliminary thought: you can't see it all at once. It is like dust. You go about and never notice, you breathe it in, you eat and drink it. It is sifted so fine, it doesn't even grit on your teeth. But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands. To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be forever on the go. And so, people are always "on the go.

Qu'est-ce que cela fait? Tout est grâce.

Mine is a parish like all the rest.  They're all alike.  Those of to-day I mean.  I was saying so only yesterday to M. le Curé de Norenfontes—that good and evil are probably evenly distributed, but on such a low plane, very low Indeed! Or if you like they lie one over the other; like oil and water they never mix.  M. le Curé only laughed at me.

It is like dust.  You go about and never notice, you breathe it in, you eat and drink it.  It is sifted so fine, it doesn't even grit on your teeth.  But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands.  To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be forever on the go.  And so people are always 'on the go'.

Le danger n'est pas dans la multiplication des machines, mais dans le nombre sans cesse croissant d'hommes habitués, dès leur enfance, à ne désirer que ce que les machines peuvent donner.

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...

Nowadays the seminaries turn out little choirboys, little ragamuffins who think they're working harder than anybody because they never get anything done.

I realize now that friendship can break out between two people, with that sudden violence which is only attributed to the revelation of love.

Je n'ai jamais été jeune, parce que personne n'a voulu l'être avec moi.

S'il n'y avait que des salauds dans le monde, le Réalisme serait aussi le Bon Sens, car le Réalisme est précisément le bon sens des salauds.