Catholics From The United States

"Encounters between strangers in the desert, while rare, were occasions of mutual suspicion, and masked by initial preparations on both sides for an incident that might prove either cordial or warlike."

"Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice's Lenten fast in the desert. Never before had Brother Francis actually seen a pilgrim with girded loins, but that this one was the bona fide article he was convinced as soon as he had recovered from the spine-chilling effect of the pilgrim's advent on the far horizon, as a wiggling iota of black caught in a shimmering haze of heat."

"Whatever you specialize in, another specialty will either gobble you, or find a way to replace you. If you get what looks like a secure niche, somebody'll come along and wall you up in it and write your epitaph on it. And the more specialized a society gets, the more dangerous it is for the pure specialist. You think an electronic engineer in any safer than an actor? Or a ditch-digger?"

"There is a difference between tragedy and blind brutal calamity. Tragedy has meaning, and there is dignity in it. Tragedy stands with its shoulders stiff and proud. But there is no meaning, no dignity, no fulfillment, in the death of a child."

"The old man was sad as he sat on his porch. He knew so little of the Great Purpose. Why must his seed fling itself starward? He knew that it must — but he lacked a reason. His grandchildren played in the twilight, played space-games, although there was not yet a starship on the planet."

"The Simplification had ceased to have plan or purpose soon after it began, and became an insane frenzy of mass murder and destruction such as can occur only when the last traces of social order are gone. The madness was transmitted to the children, taught as they were — not merely to forget — but to hate, and surges of mob fury recurred sporadically even through the fourth generation after the Deluge. By then, the fury was directed not against the learned, for there were none, but against the merely literate."

"It was said that God, in order to test mankind which had become swelled with pride as in the time of Noah, had commanded the wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to devise great engines of war such as had never before been upon the Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell, and that God had suffered these magi to place the weapons in the hands of princes, and to say to each prince: "Only because the enemies have such a thing have we devised this for thee, in order that they may know that thou hast it also, and fear to strike. See to it, m'Lord, that thou fearest them as much as they shall now fear thee, that none may unleash this dread thing which we have wrought." But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy these others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine. Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge."

"How easy it would have been flatly to have told the boy that his pilgrim was only an old tramp of some kind, and then to have commanded him not to think otherwise. But by allowing the boy to see that a question was possible, he had rendered such a command ineffective before he uttered it. Insofar as thought could be governed at all, it could only be commanded to follow what reason affirmed anyhow; command it otherwise, and it would not obey."

"When Brother Francis had removed the last tray, he touched the papers reverently: only a handful of folded documents here, and yet a treasure; for they had escaped the angry flames of the Simplification, wherein even sacred writings had curled, blackened, and withered into smoke while ignorant mobs howled and hailed it a triumph. He handled the papers as one might handle holy things, shielding them from the wind with his habit, for all were brittle and cracked from age. There was a sheaf of rough sketches and diagrams. There were hand-scribbled notes, two large folded papers, and a small book entitled Memo."

"From the lightning and the tempest, O Lord, deliver us. From the scourge of the earthquake, O Lord, deliver us. From plague, famine, and war, O Lord, deliver us. From the place of ground zero, O Lord, deliver us. From the rain of the cobalt, O Lord, deliver us. From the rain of the strontium, O Lord, deliver us. From the fall of the cesium, O Lord, deliver us. From the curse of the Fallout, O Lord, deliver us. From the begetting of monsters, O Lord, deliver us. From the curse of the Misborn, O Lord deliver us."

"Stewart: Well, that's great because we're all trying to do the same thing. Live well."

"Rose: But the world is full of Martha wannabes."

"Stewart: Living. Living. Everyday living. At home, in the garden, around the house, with the kids, um, on vacation, and it has always been for me a very serious subject. But to persuade other people that it's a serious subject, not my readers, not my, not my followers, I don't want to call them followers, my friends, but to persuade..."

"It’s time for us to wake up and face the truth, that we are a captive species on a prison planet, but the fact that we are so close to understanding the science of our imprisonment means that we are also just beginning to touch the key that locks the door, and if we are strong, if we defy and defeat the sinister forces that rule us now, we have a chance at last to unlock this place and do what we are able to do, that we are richly capable of doing, that those who love us—and they are out there, too—have hoped and sought that we should do from time immemorial."

"They know how to use chance"

"Odysseus returned at last, neither dead nor alive, somehow still attached to this ruined corpse—a spirit perhaps unwanted among spirits and forced to remain in the dead house of its body."

"[N]o man hates God without first hating himself."

"An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support."

"There are angels near you to guide you and protect you, if you would but invoke them. It is not later than we think, it is a bigger world than we think."

"You have a chance to move in far better society than the Joneses. Why worry about keeping up with the Joneses? Keep up with the Angels and you'll be far wiser and happier."

"One function of the angels is illumination, and the other function is that of being a guardian."

"The danger today is in believing there are no sick people, there is only a sick society."

"Communism is the final logic of the dehumanization of man."

"Right is right if nobody is right, and wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong."

"The very good never believe themselves very good, because they are judging themselves by the Ideal."

"We justify want of faith by saying, "I don't go to church, but I am better than those who do," as one might say, "I don't pay taxes or serve the nation, but I am better than those who do.""

"[P]eace of soul implies tranquillity of order, with material things ordered to the body, the body to the soul, the personality to neighbor and to God. Peace of mind is subjective tranquillity — a narrower thing. It requires great moral effort to attain peace of soul, but even those who are indifferent to right and wrong sometimes achieve peace of mind (which the Scriptures call "false peace")."

"[H]e is of the intelligentsia (which means he has been educated beyond his intelligence)."

"By denying any ultimate standard outside of self, one can escape all self-blame and go through life on a perpetual mission of face saving."

"In contrast to the pride of those who deny their guilt to escape self-criticism is the humility of God, who made a world which added not to His glory and then made man to criticize Him."

"We find only what we seek: nature has many secrets to give us, but she will not surrender them until we sit down patiently before her and obey her laws. Only by such submission do we receive."

"By professing no ideal in morality, these nice people can never be accused of not living up to their creed. This is the great advantage that they have over the Christians — whose creed is so lofty that they can often and truly be accused of failing to meet its demands."

"[T]here is a tremendous egotism and conceit in those popular articles and lectures entitled,"My Idea of Religion," or "My Idea of God." An individual religion can be as misleading and uninformed as an individual astronomy or an individual mathematics."

"There is not a single striving or pursuit or yearning of the human heart, even in the midst of the most sensual pleasures, that is not a dim grasping after the Infinite."

"It is assumed by many reformers that the principal and major cause of unhappiness is economic insecurity, but this theory forgets that there are economic problems only because men have not solved the problems of their own souls. Economic disorder is a symptom of spiritual disorder."

"All intense interest in luxury is a mark of inner poverty. The less grace there is in the soul, the more ornament must be on the body."

"There are no plains in the spiritual life; we are either going uphill or coming down. Furthermore the pose of indifference is only intellectual. The will must choose. And even though an "indifferent" soul does not positively reject the infinite, the infinite rejects it."

"Anxiety increases in direct ratio and proportion as man departs from God."

"Hitler had no need of God: in his own conceit, he was a god."

"No man has need of religion who is self-righteous, who is all he wants to be and all he ought to be."

"Before you deny God, ask yourself why you deny Him. Is it because of the way you live? A poem of Arthur Hugh Clough satirized those who wish there was no God because He interferes with their dishonesty, their lawlessness, or their license."

"Atheism is not a doctrine; it is a cry of wrath."

"We live in a sensate age. We are no longer governed by Faith, we are no longer governed by reason. We are governed by feelings."

"Another instance of how our Lord associated Peter with himself was in the payment of the temple tax. It is the only time in scripture where God ever associates a human being with himself under the personal pronoun we.... Now at the time of the payment of the temple tax our blessed Lord told Peter to pay it, and he said to pay it “for me and thee.” Then he adds, "that we may not scandalize." Here he makes himself one with Peter. Peter is associated with the Master in a way that no one else can ever be associated. We — Christ and Peter. That is why papal encyclicals begin with the word we."

"When the record of any human life is set down, there are three pairs of eyes who see it in a different light. There is the life as I see it. as others see it, and as God sees it."

"All my sermons are prepared in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. As recreation is most pleasant and profitable in the sun, so homiletic creativity is best nourished before the Eucharist. The most brilliant ideas come from meeting God face to face. The Holy Spirit that presided at the Incarnation is the best atmosphere for illumination. Pope John Paul II keeps a small desk or writing pad near him whenever he is in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament; and I have done this all my life — I am sure for the same reason he does, because a lover always works better when the beloved is with him."

"Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive. They are too often praised for being broadminded when they are so broadminded they can never make up their minds about anything."

"Some will not look on suffering because it creates responsibility."

"The only argument the world will listen to now is the argument of personal holiness. It has heard all the rest and rejected them."

"False compassion, which is gradually growing in this country, is a pity that is shown, not to the mugged, but to the mugger; not to the family of the murdered, but to the murderer; not to the woman who was raped, but to the rapist. ... There are some judges — some, in some of our courts; there are some social workers — not all; there are sob sisters; there are the social slobberers, who insist on compassion being shown to the muggers, to the dope fiends, to the throat slashers, to the beatniks, to the prostitutes, to the homosexuals, to the punks: so that today the decent man is practically off the reservation."