Georges Bernanos quotes

A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all. (Georges Bernanos)
The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. View quote
Georges Bernanos
A man given to vice is always an idealist. View quote
Georges Bernanos
[A] good Christian does not care for miracles very much, because a miracle is God looking after His own affairs, and we prefer looking after them for Him. View quote
Georges Bernanos
[P]ride has no intrinsic substance, being no more than the name given to the soul devouring itself. When that loathsome perversion of love has borne its fruit, it has another, more meaningful and weightier name. We call it hatred. View quote
Georges Bernanos
I can now see to the bottom of my own depths, there is nothing stopping my gaze, no obstacle is in the way. And there is nothing there. View quote
Georges Bernanos
Optimism has always seemed to me the cunning alibi of egoists, anxious to cover up their state of chronic self-satisfaction. They are optimists in order to avoid pitying other men and their misfortune. ~~ Yet pity is a vexed question. View quote
Georges Bernanos
[T]he cradle is shallower than the grave. View quote
Georges Bernanos
Only the present counts. View quote
Georges Bernanos
A large number of suspects, both men and women, escaped martial law for lack of any shred of evidence against them on which a court-martial could convict. So they began setting them free in groups, according to their birth-place. But half-way, the car-load would be emptied into a ditch. View quote
Georges Bernanos
I have just discovered something I have always known: we can no more escape from one another than we can escape from God. (Georges Bernanos)
God knows that we should not despise anything. We must do our best. View quote
Georges Bernanos
If hell has no answer for the questioning dead, it is not because it refuses to answer (for rigorous, alas, in observance, is the imperishable fire), but it is because hell has nothing to say, will say nothing eternally. View quote
Georges Bernanos
More often than not, nothingness is reluctantly and despairingly taken to be the only hypothesis possible when all the others have failed, since by definition it cannot be disproven and is beyond the scope of reason. View quote
Georges Bernanos
Money-crimes have an abstract quality. History is laden with the victims of gold, but their remains are odourless. View quote
Georges Bernanos
Appearances are nothing.... And first of all they should not be feared, they are only dangerous to the weak. View quote
Georges Bernanos
Rather than the obsession with impurity, you'd do better to fear the nostalgia for purity. View quote
Georges Bernanos
[A]ll her life she [Chantal] had been carefully, heroically watching over mediocre beings who were hardly real, over things of no value. View quote
Georges Bernanos
[T]here is nothing that God hates so much as a liar. View quote
Georges Bernanos
Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air. View quote
Georges Bernanos
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)
A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread. View quote
Georges Bernanos
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. View quote
Georges Bernanos
First of all, be what you are. View quote
Georges Bernanos
Suicide only really frightens those who are never tempted by it and never will be, for its darkness only welcomes those who are predestined to it. View quote
Georges Bernanos