Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire Quotes
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Prophecy, that universal and perpetual torch by which faith is enlightened.
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A really sublime moment is that when the last ray of light breaks in upon the soul, and marshals into a single group all the scattered disconnected truths there. There is such a vast difference between the moment which follows, and the moment which precedes this one, between what we were before, and what we are after, that the word grace has been invented to convey the idea of this magic stroke, of this light from on high.
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Only three things are necessary to make life happy: the blessing of God, books , and a friend.
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In relations between the rich and the strong, between the rich and the poor, between the master and the servant, it's liberty that grinds down, and the law which liberates.
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The great men of antiquity were poor.
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It is religion which has made modern Europe what she is by its stability amid the ruin of nations, by adapting itself to circumstances, to times, and places, without ever abating an iota of its unshaken principles.
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You saw me vacillating between error and truth, loving them equally because unable to distinguish the one from the other; the hour marked out by God for my enlightenment has come: He has shown me the powerlessness of reason, and the necessity of faith.
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Man forms himself in his own interior, and nowhere else.
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The universe shows us the life of God, or rather it is in itself the life of God. We behold in it his permanent action, the scene upon which his power is exercised, and in which all his attributes are reflected. God is not out of the universe any more than the universe is out of God. God is the principle, the universe is the consequence, but a necessary consequence, without which the principle would be inert, unfruitful, impossible to conceive.
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After speech, silence is the greatest power in the world.
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The intercourse between man and God reposes upon truths of another order than that of reason, upon a light different and more elevated than that which naturally enlightens created intelligences.
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Nothing is achieved without solitude.
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Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.
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As to the lawful pleasures of the mind, the heart, or the senses, indulge in them with gratitude and moderation, drawing up sometimes in order to punish yourself, without waiting to be forced to do so by necessity.
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Whilst no people appears in history without the sign and palladium of a positive faith, without temple, altar, priesthood--that is to say, without a constituted religion--unbelief appears only under an individual form, sometimes proscribed, sometimes tolerated, seldom powerful, and never becoming established as the public and social expression of a nation.
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The inner life is the whole man, and forms all the worth of man.
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Love is the beginning, the middle, and the end of everything.
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Christianity is not a law of bondage; and if it respect the hand of God which sometimes raises up tyrants, it draws up where obedience degenerates into guilty cowardice.
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There is nothing fruitful except sacrifice.
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For Christians, the first of books is the Gospel and the Rosary is actually the abridgement of the Gospel.
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Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure.
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Only yesterday I was full of worldly fancies, although religion had already some share in my thoughts: glory was still my daydream. Today my hopes are higher, and I covet here below nothing but obscurity and peace.
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Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other, on the contrary they are twin sisters.
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There exists an infinite, eternal Being, subsisting of himself, who is one without being alone; for he finds in his own essence relations whence, with the necessary movement of his life, results the absolute plenitude of his perfection and his happiness. A Being unique and complete, God suffices to himself.
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The Church had the words reason and liberty on her lips when the inalienable rights of the human race were threatened with shipwreck.
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Duty is the grandest of ideas, because it implies the idea of God, of the soul, of liberty, of responsibility, of immortality.
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Youth is life's beautiful moment.
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Wherever God is adored, he is adored in virtue of a supernatural doctrine; wherever he is despised, he is despised in the name of nature and reason.
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It is not genius, nor glory, nor love that reflects the greatness of the human soul; it is kindness.
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Since God is the end of man, since he has created us to be perfect and happy in him, it is manifest that if the designs of creation have not here below been entirely frustrated, there should be found men who tend to their end in seeking and loving God. And nevertheless, because of human liberty, there should also be found other men who neglect God, their principle and their end, and yield to the seduction of created things. Such indeed is the spectacle which the history of the world unceasingly presents to us.
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Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire
- Born: May 12, 1802
- Died: November 21, 1861
- Occupation: Journalist