Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire Quotes & Sayings

The intercourse between man and God reposes upon truths of another order than that of reason, upon a light different and more elevated than that which naturally enlightens created intelligences. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

The inner life is the whole man, and forms all the worth of man. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other, on the contrary they are twin sisters. — Jean-Baptiste Henri 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. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

It is religion which has made modern Europe what she is by its stability amid the ruin of nations, by adapting itself to circumstances, to times, and places, without ever abating an iota of its unshaken principles. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Nothing wounds a friend like a want of confidence. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

As to the lawful pleasures of the mind, the heart, or the senses, indulge in them with gratitude and moderation, drawing up sometimes in order to punish yourself, without waiting to be forced to do so by necessity. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

The great men of antiquity were poor. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

After speech, silence is the greatest power in the world. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Happily, and thanks to God, there are orifices through which our inner life constantly escapes, and the soul, like the blood, hath its pores. The mouth is the chief and foremost of these channels which lead the soul out of its invisible sanctuary; it is by speech that man communicates the secret converse which is his real life. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Whilst no people appears in history without the sign and palladium of a positive faith, without temple, altar, priesthood
that is to say, without a constituted religion
unbelief appears only under an individual form, sometimes proscribed, sometimes tolerated, seldom powerful, and never becoming established as the public and social expression of a nation. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

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. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Turn your eyes whither you will, enter into whatever temple you please, you will find there on the very threshold Prophecy and Sacrament ... whoever despises these two things, infallibly bends towards earth, knowing nothing of God but his name, and holding with him no other relations than ingratitude and forgetfulness. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Only yesterday I was full of worldly fancies, although religion had already some share in my thoughts: glory was still my daydream. Today my hopes are higher, and I covet here below nothing but obscurity and peace. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

It is not genius, nor glory, nor love that reflects the greatness of the human soul; it is kindness. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Wherever God is adored, he is adored in virtue of a supernatural doctrine; wherever he is despised, he is despised in the name of nature and reason. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

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. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

There is nothing fruitful except sacrifice. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

The universe shows us the life of God, or rather it is in itself the life of God. We behold in it his permanent action, the scene upon which his power is exercised, and in which all his attributes are reflected. God is not out of the universe any more than the universe is out of God. God is the principle, the universe is the consequence, but a necessary consequence, without which the principle would be inert, unfruitful, impossible to conceive. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Man forms himself in his own interior, and nowhere else. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Youth is life's beautiful moment. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Nothing is achieved without solitude. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Duty is the grandest of ideas, because it implies the idea of God, of the soul, of liberty, of responsibility, of immortality. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

For Christians, the first of books is the Gospel and the Rosary is actually the abridgement of the Gospel. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Christianity is not a law of bondage; and if it respect the hand of God which sometimes raises up tyrants, it draws up where obedience degenerates into guilty cowardice. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

The Church had the words reason and liberty on her lips when the inalienable rights of the human race were threatened with shipwreck. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Prophecy, that universal and perpetual torch by which faith is enlightened. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Since God is the end of man, since he has created us to be perfect and happy in him, it is manifest that if the designs of creation have not here below been entirely frustrated, there should be found men who tend to their end in seeking and loving God. And nevertheless, because of human liberty, there should also be found other men who neglect God, their principle and their end, and yield to the seduction of created things. Such indeed is the spectacle which the history of the world unceasingly presents to us. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

In relations between the rich and the strong, between the rich and the poor, between the master and the servant, it's liberty that grinds down, and the law which liberates. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

It is not a slight thing, gentlemen, to force a man to say what he is, or what he believes himself to be; for that supreme word of man, that single expression which he utters of and upon himself is decisive. It lays down the basis upon which all judgment of him is to be formed. From that moment all the acts of his life must correspond to the answer given by him. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Only three things are necessary to make life happy: the blessing of God, books , and a friend. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

A really sublime moment is that when the last ray of light breaks in upon the soul, and marshals into a single group all the scattered disconnected truths there. There is such a vast difference between the moment which follows, and the moment which precedes this one, between what we were before, and what we are after, that the word grace has been invented to convey the idea of this magic stroke, of this light from on high. — Jean-Baptiste Henri 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. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire