Henri Quotes

Beneath our frantic activities, there's a deep desire to show the world we are worthwhile.

The mystery of one man is too immense and too profound to be explained by another man.

There are areas I have to work on. I had some questions and some struggles, but it was an enormously important time for me.

I am working on three things: on being a prayerful person; on staying close to the handicapped; and on my writing. These are my constant concerns.

The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.

Community life is not easy for somebody like me, who is used to living by himself and doing what he wants. It's a demanding life, and you quickly get in touch with your own handicaps and weaknesses.

Often we come home from a sharing session with a feeling that something precious has been taken away from us or that holy ground has been trodden upon.

Peacemaking is a full-time vocation that includes each member of God's people.

The great challenge is to discover that we are truly invited to participate in the divine life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Writing is not just a job. It helps me to pray. It's a way of being.

I still believe that the university is a place where people can develop their minds and learn skills, but also they can develop their personalities and their spiritual life.

Solitude, community, and ministry are certainly not just for celibates! Celibates also have a hard time keeping up.

I have always felt that if I am very personal and connected with what I myself am living, my writing will transcend ecclesial boundaries.

It is not that the university as such is against spiritual formation. It is just that often the university does not know how to integrate spiritual formation within its academic disciplines.

Chance ... must be something more than the name we give to our ignorance.

Logic sometimes makes monsters. For half a century we have seen a mass of bizarre functions which appear to be forced to resemble as little as possible honest functions which serve some purpose.

We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.

Doubting everything and believing everything are two equally convenient solutions that guard us from having to think

Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means.

Les faits ne parlent pas. Facts do not speak.

Deviner avant de démontrer! Ai-je besoin de rappeler que c'est ainsi que se sont faites toutes les découvertes importantes.

Zero is the number of objects that satisfy a condition that is never satisfied. But as never means "in no case", I do not see that any progress has been made.

Talk with M. Hermite. He never evokes a concrete image, yet you soon perceive that the more abstract entities are to him like living creatures.

But all of my efforts served only to make me better acquainted with the difficulty, which in itself was something.

Hypotheses are what we lack the least.

A very small cause, which escapes us, determines a considerable effect which we cannot ignore, and we say that this effect is due to chance.

If a king tries to start a war, a mother should go to him and forbid it.

And the rigidity of the material with which we have to compose, is a more formidable opponent than Lasker or Capablanca. Because these lifeless opponents do not have any moments of human weakness!

Our ancestors have travelled the iron age; the golden is before us.

Every trait of beauty may be traced to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, and heroism.

An effort made with ourselves for the good of others, with the intention of pleasing God alone.

There are few writers of note, of any country or of any age, from whom quotations might not be made in proof of the love with which they regarded Nature.

The great men of antiquity were poor.

There is nothing fruitful except sacrifice.

A great man may be the personification and type of the epoch for which God destines him, but he is never its creator.

Those who cannot begin do not finish.

Art after all is but an extension of language to the expression of sensations too subtle for words.

The ignorant are to be found as much among the educated as among the uneducated.

Life is finding yourself. It is a spirit development.

It seems to me that before a man tries to express anything to the world he must recognize in himself an individual, a new one, very distinct from others.

You will never draw the sense of a thing unless you are feeling it at the time you work.

Personal experimentation is revealing, and once you get into it, immensely engaging.

There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land.

Look for echoes. Sometimes the same shape or direction will echo through the picture.

The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art.

Your only hope of satisfying others is in satisfying yourself. I speak of a great satisfaction, not a commercial satisfaction.

Don't stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.

Educate yourself. Don't let me educate you

In certain books—some way in the first few paragraphs you know that you have met a brother.

The good thing about painting from memory is that so much is forgotten.