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? Georges Bernanos More Quotes by Georges Bernanos More Quotes From Georges Bernanos It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so. Georges Bernanos excellence pride order Hope is a risk that must be run. Georges Bernanos hope running inspirational 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, humilation and misery. Injustice sustained at the exact degree of necessary tension to turn the cogs of the huge machine-for-the-making-of-rich-men, without bursting the boiler. Georges Bernanos pain powerful men ...the most dangerous shortsightedness consists in underestimating the mediocre. Georges Bernanos mediocre underestimate dangerous Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air. Georges Bernanos flower teamwork peace To be able to share in another's joy, that is the secret of happiness. Georges Bernanos happy joy happiness Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it. Georges Bernanos shapes literature faith Rather than the obsession with impurity, you'd do better to fear the nostalgia for purity. Georges Bernanos obsession nostalgia purity Sadness came into the world with Satan - that world our Saviour never prayed for, the world you say I do not know. Oh, it is not so difficult to recognize: it is the world that prefers cold to warmth! 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? Georges Bernanos sadness night world You owe it to everyone you love to find pockets of tranquility in your busy world. Georges Bernanos pockets busy world The world is eaten up by boredom. 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. Georges Bernanos bores-you dust hands Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses. Georges Bernanos may men civilization The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. Georges Bernanos tyrants deception mean The devil, you see, is that friend who never stays with us to the end. Georges Bernanos devil ends 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. Georges Bernanos punishment doe needs The wish to pray is a prayer in itself. Georges Bernanos praying prayer wish To you a pious young girl who goes to mass and communion, seems pretty silly and childish; you take us for innocents... Well, let me tell you, sometimes we know more about evil than people who have only learned to offend God. Georges Bernanos girl silly people The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more. Georges Bernanos literature rights doe Chantal's only ruse ... was her shattering simplicity. While a weak man or an imposter is always more complicated than the problem he is trying to solve, and thinking to encompass his adversary, merely keeps prowling interminably around himself, the heroic nature will throw itself into the heart of the danger to turn it to its own use, just as captured artillery is turned about and aimed at the backs of the fleeing enemy. Georges Bernanos heart men thinking Lust is a mysterious wound in the side of humanity; or rather, at the very source of its life! To confound this lust in man with that desire which unites the sexes is like confusing a tumor with the very organ which it devours, a tumor whose very deformity horribly reproduces the shape. Georges Bernanos humanity men sex
