Quote

First of all, be what you are.

Georges Bernanos

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Georges Bernanos
Age: 60 †
Born: 1888
Born: February 20
Died: 1948
Died: July 5
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Librettist
Novelist
Writer
9th arrondissement
Paris
Bernanos
First

More quotes by Georges Bernanos

Image
It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.
Georges Bernanos
Image
Hell, madame, is to love no longer.
Georges Bernanos
Image
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.
Georges Bernanos
Image
The modern state no longer has anything but rights it does not recognize duties any more.
Georges Bernanos
Image
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.
Georges Bernanos
Image
Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.
Georges Bernanos
Image
I have just discovered something I have always known: we can no more escape from one another than we can escape from God.
Georges Bernanos
Image
Purity is not imposed upon us as though it were a kind of punishment, it is one of those mysterious but obvious conditions of that supernatural knowledge of ourselves in the Divine, which we speak of as faith. Impurity does not destroy this knowledge, it slays our need for it.
Georges Bernanos
Image
[T]he cradle is shallower than the grave.
Georges Bernanos
Image
The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.
Georges Bernanos
Image
Our rages, daughters of despair, creep and squirm like worms. Prayer is the only form of revolt which remains upright.
Georges Bernanos
Image
A large number of suspects, both men and women, escaped martial law for lack of any shred of evidence against them on which a court-martial could convict. So they began setting them free in groups, according to their birth-place. But half-way, the car-load would be emptied into a ditch.
Georges Bernanos
Image
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
Image
The wish to pray is a prayer in itself.
Georges Bernanos
Image
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?
Georges Bernanos
Image
To be able to share in another's joy, that is the secret of happiness.
Georges Bernanos
Image
All her life she [Chantal] had been carefully, heroically watching over mediocre beings who were hardly real, over things of no value.
Georges Bernanos
Image
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.
Georges Bernanos
Image
God knows that we should not despise anything. We must do our best.
Georges Bernanos
Image
What does it matter, all is grace.
Georges Bernanos