French preacher and journalist (1802-1861)
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.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
Letters to Young Men
The party of God exists, it has always existed, it is endowed with a force which none other has been able to destroy--neither ages, nor kings, nor sages. Ages have come with the empire and stratagems of duration; the party of God has seen them pass away, and has made use of them but to outlive them. Kings have held in their hands all the power of man; the party of God has blessed or cursed their passage, and in the one, as in the other case, has covered their head with earth and remained living. Sages have written books, and made names for themselves; the party of God has taken possession of their books, and now that their renown is but a fruitless remembrance, it still uses their ashes to ensure its immortality.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
God and Man: Conferences Delivered at Notre Dame in Paris by the Rev. Père Lacordaire
The mind sees, the will commands, the man acts. What is it then to act? To act is to produce something. If you have produced nothing--if no result has been the fruit of your will, you have done nothing.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
God and Man: Conferences Delivered at Notre Dame in Paris by the Rev. Père Lacordaire
Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other, on the contrary they are twin sisters.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
Letters to Young Men
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.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
God and Man: Conferences Delivered at Notre Dame in Paris by the Rev. Père Lacordaire
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.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
Jesus Christ: Conferences Delivered at Notre Dame in Paris