Georges Bernanos Quotes

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All quotes by Georges Bernanos: Hell Justice Literature Prayer Soul more...
  • Hell is not to love anymore.

  • Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.

    Georges Bernanos (1955). “Last essays”
  • 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.

    "A Diary of My Times". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1938.
  • God! how is it that we fail to recognize that the mask of pleasure, stripped of all hypocrisy, is that of anguish?

  • And what have you laymen made of hell? A kind of penal servitude for eternity, on the lines of your convict prisons on earth, to which you condemn in advance all the wretched felons your police have hunted from the beginning - enemies of society, as you call them. You're kind enough to include the blasphemers and the profane. What proud or reasonable man could stomach such a notion of God's justice? And when you find that notion inconvenient it's easy enough for you to put it on one side. Hell is not to love any more, Madame. Not to love any more!

    Georges Bernanos, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.163, Da Capo Press
  • 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, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.126, Da Capo Press
  • 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.

  • Have you never been moved by poor men's fidelity, the image of you they form in their simple minds? Why should you always talk of their envy, without understanding that what they ask of you is not so much your worldly goods, as something very hard to define, which they themselves can put no name to; yet at times it consoles their loneliness; a dream of splendor, of magnificence, a tawdry dream, a poor man's dream -and yet God blesses it!

  • Who are you to condemn another's sin? He who condemns sin becomes part of it, espouses it.

    Georges Bernanos, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.139, Da Capo Press
  • The most dangerous of our calculations are those we call illusions.

  • ...the most dangerous shortsightedness consists in underestimating the mediocre.

    Georges Bernanos (1944). “Plea for Liberty: Letters to the English, the Americans, the Europeans”
  • 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.

    "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.
  • 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, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.2, Da Capo Press
  • Our rages, daughters of despair, creep and squirm like worms. Prayer is the only form of revolt which remains upright.

    Georges Bernanos (1938). “A diary of my times”
  • I know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I don't despise it. But it can't quench pain, it slips through your soul as through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it.

    Georges Bernanos, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.261, Da Capo Press
  • When you think of the huge uninterrupted success of a book like Don Quixote, you're bound to realize that if humankind have not yet finished being revenged, by sheer laughter, for being let down in their greatest hope, it is because that hope was cherished so long and lay so deep!

    Georges Bernanos, Pamela Morris (1975). “The diary of a country priest”
  • Appearances are nothing.... And first of all they should not be feared, they are only dangerous to the weak.

    "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.
  • Optimism approves of everything, submits to everything, believes everything; it is the virtue above all of the taxpayer.

    Georges Bernanos (1955). “Last essays”
  • [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.

    "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.
  • [T]he cradle is shallower than the grave.

    Georges Bernanos (2000). “Monsieur Ouine”, p.244, U of Nebraska Press
  • Fact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, He even provided a first installment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories.

    Georges Bernanos (1974). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, Doubleday Books
  • 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.

    "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.
  • The devil, you see, is that friend who never stays with us to the end.

    Georges Bernanos (2000). “Monsieur Ouine”, p.171, U of Nebraska Press
  • Money-crimes have an abstract quality. History is laden with the victims of gold, but their remains are odourless.

    "A Diary of My Times". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1938.
  • 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.

  • Only the present counts.

    "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.
  • Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.

    Georges Bernanos, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.122, Da Capo Press
  • Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterwards.

    "Diary of a Country Priest".
  • What does it matter, all is grace.

  • A man given to vice is always an idealist.

    Georges Bernanos (2000). “Monsieur Ouine”, p.61, U of Nebraska Press
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    Georges Bernanos quotes about: Hell Justice Literature Prayer Soul