Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings?

The human beings must be mentally immensely strong, during the encounter with the true malevolence in others, because on it's own it doesn't belong to their species.

The best things that happen I'd never have thought to pray for. In a million years. The worst things just come like the weather.

We are creatures taken seriously by the Earth, because we can severely affect the fate of the Earth, but we are in no way taken seriously by the Universe yet!

When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person.

There was no way to abandon guilt, no decent way to disown it. All the tangles and knots of bitterness and desperation and fear had to be pitied. No, better, grace had to fall over them.