French author (1888-1948)
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
Last Essays
Even sin, once the will is detached and no longer nourishes it, withers and dies sterile. It is in the secret of intentions, like in a decomposing humus, in the dark forest of future sins, unpardoned sins, half dead, half living, that new poisons are distilled.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Joy
What does the truth matter? Haven't we mothers all given our sons a taste for lies, lies which from the cradle upwards lull them, reassure them, send them to sleep: lies as soft and warm as a breast!
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
While a weak man or an imposter is always more complicated than the problem he is trying to solve, and thinking to encompass his adversary, merely keeps prowling interminably around himself, the heroic nature will throw itself into the heart of the danger to turn it to its own use, just as captured artillery is turned about and aimed at the backs of the fleeing enemy.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Joy
Justice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice? Let us rather call it injustice, but of a sly effective order, based entirely on cruel knowledge of the resistance of the weak, their capacity for pain, humiliation and misery. Injustice sustained at the exact degree of necessary tension to turn the cogs of the huge machine-for-the-making-of-rich-men, without bursting the boiler.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
No one ever discovers the depths of his own loneliness.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
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
The Diary of a Country Priest
There is no mask that temptation cannot wear.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Impostor
It is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
There is nothing that God hates so much as a liar.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Joy
Optimism has always seemed to me the cunning alibi of egoists, anxious to cover up their state of chronic self-satisfaction. They are optimists in order to avoid pitying other men and their misfortune.
GEORGES BERNANOS
A Diary of My Times
The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Last Essays
It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
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. To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be for ever on the go. And so people are always "on the go."
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
More often than not, nothingness is reluctantly and despairingly taken to be the only hypothesis possible when all the others have failed, since by definition it cannot be disproven and is beyond the scope of reason.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Impostor
Chantal's only ruse ... was her shattering simplicity.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Joy
If hell has no answer for the questioning dead, it is not because it refuses to answer (for rigorous, alas, in observance, is the imperishable fire), but it is because hell has nothing to say, will say nothing eternally.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Joy
It is one of the most mysterious penalties of men that they should be forced to confide the most precious of their possessions to things so unstable and ever changing, alas, as words.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
Pride has no intrinsic substance, being no more than the name given to the soul devouring itself.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Impostor