In my servant the ant, my tiny servant, who hoards greedily like a mis — Charles Péguy

"Tyranny is always better organised than freedom."

"These bygone workmen did not serve, they worked. They had an absolute honor, which is honor proper. A chair rung had to be well made. That was an understood thing. That was the first thing. It wasn’t that the chair rung had to be well made for the salary or on account of the salary. It wasn’t that it was well made for the boss, nor for connoisseurs, nor for the boss’ clients. It had to be well made itself, in itself, for itself, in its very self. A tradition coming, springing from deep within the race, a history, an absolute, an honor, demanded that this chair rung be well made. Every part of the chair which could not be seen was just as perfectly made as the parts which could be seen. This was the selfsame principle of cathedrals. … There was no question of being seen or of not being seen. It was the innate being of work which needed to be well done."

"There will be things that I do that no one will be left to understand."

"The faith that I love the best, says God, is hope."

"Faith is a loyal Wife. Charity is a Mother. An ardent mother, noble-hearted. Or an older sister who is like a mother. Hope is a little girl, nothing at all."

"I am so resplendent in my creation. That in order really not to see me these poor people would have to be blind."

"Even if we end terror and even if we eliminate tension, even if we reduce arms and restrict conflict, even if peace were to come to the nations, we would turn from this struggle only to find ourselves on a new battleground as filled with danger and as fraught with difficulty as any ever faced by man. For many of our most urgent problems do not spring from the cold war or even from the ambitions of our adversaries. These are the problems which will persist beyond the cold war. They are the ominous obstacles to mans effort to build a great world society--a place where every man can find a life free from hunger and disease-a life offering the chance to seek spiritual fulfillment unhampered by the degradation of bodily misery."

"We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the waters edge."

"Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily."

"Necessità l ci nduce, e non diletto."

"Gentlemen look on this wonder, Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it, For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant, For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolld. In this head the all-baffling brain, In it and below it the makings of heroes. (7)"

"Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality, And the vast all that is calld Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead."