Antonin Sertillanges Quotes & Sayings

Very often, gleams of light come in a few minutes' sleeplessness, in a second
perhaps; you must fix them. To entrust them to the relaxed brain is like writing on water; there is every chance that on the morrow there will be no slightest trace left of any happening. — Antonin Sertillanges

Look in the heart and write ... The man who writes like that, without pride or artifice, as it were for himself, is in reality speaking for humanity. Humanity will recognize itself in him, because it is human nature that has inspired the discourse. Life recognizes life! — Antonin Sertillanges

The reward of a work is to have produced it; the reward of effort is to have grown by it. — Antonin Sertillanges

By this act He affirms that the enemy of love is pride, and that the enemy of all good is the refusal to love. — Antonin Sertillanges

Inspiration is incompatible with selfish desire. Whoever wants something for himself sets truth aside. Such aims can only degrade work. — Antonin Sertillanges

It is a painful thing to say to oneself: by choosing one road I am turning my back on a thousand others. Everything is interesting; everything might be useful; everything attracts and charms a noble mind; but death is before us; mind and matter make their demands; willy-nilly we must submit and rest content as to things that time and wisdom deny us, with a glance of sympathy which is another act of our homage to the truth. — Antonin Sertillanges

We must beware of yielding to the pressure of a spirit of cowardly conformity which proclaims itself everybody's friend in the hope that everybody will obligingly return the compliment. — Antonin Sertillanges

The general who counts only his casualties, the prisoners and the material that he has lost, the positions that he has not taken, the chances that remain to his enemy, and compares his small achievement with his vaster plan, has no sense of triumph. If he confines himself to such calculations he loses the fruit of his victory; in fact, if he is very ambitious, he will regard his victory as a reverse. For is it not a reverse to have done something which is not enough? The Savior's ambition is insatiable. For one soul He would give the whole of His blood and the whole of His heart. But precisely for that reason, when a soul is lost, even a single soul, He feels that to save it He would leave and forget all the others. His parable tells us so: "If a man hath a hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek that which is gone astray?"179 — Antonin Sertillanges

Judas does not love. He does not love and that is why he betrays. He does not love, and that is why, having cast aside treason because it horrifies him, he ends by detesting himself without repenting. Self-hatred is salutary only when associated with the love of God. Alone it is homicidal; it has the power to destroy everything and it has no power at all to repair. — Antonin Sertillanges

Courage is sustained by calling up anew the vision of the goal. — Antonin Sertillanges

If it is a book, do not leave it without being able to sum it up and to estimate its value. — Antonin Sertillanges

Friendship is an obstetric art; it draws out our richest and deepest resources; it unfolds the wings of our dreams and hidden indeterminate thoughts; it serves as a check on our judgements, tries out our new ideas, keeps up our ardor, and inflames our enthusiasm. — Antonin Sertillanges

Love truth and its fruits of life, for yourself and for others; devote to study and to the profitable use of study the best part of your time and your heart. — Antonin Sertillanges