I have no ambition to change my nature, I merely intend to conquer my dislikes.

— Georges Bernanos

It is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man.

— Georges Bernanos

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.

— Georges Bernanos

Lust is a mysterious wound in the side of humanity; or rather, at the very source of its life! To confound this lust in man with that desire which unites the sexes is like confusing a tumor with the very organ which it devours, a tumor whose very deformity horribly reproduces the shape.

— Georges Bernanos

O miracle—thus to be able to give [peace] we ourselves do not possess, sweet miracle of our empty hands!

— Georges Bernanos

Our rages daughters of despair creep and squirm like worms. Prayer is the only form of revolt which remains upright.

— Georges Bernanos

Satan is too hard a master. He would never command as did the Other with divine simplicity: 'Do likewise.' The devil will have no victims resemble him. He permits only a rough caricature, impotent, abject, which has to serve as food for eternal irony, the mordant irony of the depths.

— 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.

— Georges Bernanos

Teaching is no joke, sonny! ... Comforting truths, they call it! Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterward. Besides, you've no right to call that sort of thing comfort. Might as well talk about condolences! The Word of God is a red-hot iron. And you who preach it 'up go picking it up with a pair of tongs, for fear of burning yourself, you daren't get hold of it with both hands. It's too funny! Why, the priest who descends from the pulpit of Truth, with a mouth like a hen's vent, a little hot but pleased with himself, he's not been preaching: at best he's been purring like a tabby-cat. Mind you that can happen to us all, we're all half asleep, it's the devil to wake us up, sometimes — the apostles slept all right at Gethsemane. Still, there's a difference... And mind you many a fellow who waves his arms and sweats like a furniture-remover isn't necessarily any more awakened than the rest. On the contrary. I simply mean that when the Lord has drawn from me some word for the good of souls, I know, because of the pain of it.

— Georges Bernanos

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

— Georges Bernanos