The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Sometimes we smile at a child thats afraid of the dark. I think more ridiculous is a man or woman afraid of the light.

I believe... that security declines as security machinery expands.

It's easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she's never been anything but dead, than to miss her at all the places where she was alive.

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor and surviving.

The family is the great catechism God has given the world. The work of our lifetime is to learn how to read it and then study it prayerfully.

Do you want to feel insecure? Count the number of Christmas cards you sent out, and then count those you received.

The way to tell if your job is done: if you're alive, you've got a job.

Religious freedom is foundational for our country, and we must lead on religious freedom as an example in America.

Suffering is the demand that experience be different from what it is.

The only frontier now left to exploit is not a frontier in space but a frontier in time. We steal the future from our children by plunging massively deeper and deeper into debt.