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

Georges Bernanos

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Georges Bernanos
Age: 60 †
Born: 1888
Born: February 20
Died: 1948
Died: July 5
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Librettist
Novelist
Writer
9th arrondissement
Paris
Bernanos
Means
Tyrants
Ends
Justify
Stills
Corruption
Tyranny
Still
Sign
Firsts
Alive
First
Literature
Justifies
Mean
Society
Deception

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Our rages, daughters of despair, creep and squirm like worms. Prayer is the only form of revolt which remains upright.
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[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.
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What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.
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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.
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Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.
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Rather than the obsession with impurity, you'd do better to fear the nostalgia for purity.
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Fear, true fear, is a savage frenzy. Of all the insanities of which we are capable, it is surely the cruelest. There is naught to equal its drive, and naught can survive its thrust.
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All her life she [Chantal] had been carefully, heroically watching over mediocre beings who were hardly real, over things of no value.
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Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterwards.
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It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.
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A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.
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[T]he cradle is shallower than the grave.
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I have done no passably decent job in this world which did not at first seem to me useless - absurdly useless, useless to the point of nausea. My secret demon is called:: What's the use?
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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.
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I have just discovered something I have always known: we can no more escape from one another than we can escape from God.
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The devil, you see, is that friend who never stays with us to the end.
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Appearances are nothing.... And first of all they should not be feared, they are only dangerous to the weak.
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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.
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To you a pious young girl who goes to mass and communion, seems pretty silly and childish you take us for innocents... Well, let me tell you, sometimes we know more about evil than people who have only learned to offend God.
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Who are you to condemn another's sin? He who condemns sin becomes part of it, espouses it.
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