Patrick's Personal Home Page

A person who does not pray habitually, no matter how believing or pious he may be, will not achieve full spiritual growth. Neither will he acquire peace of soul because he will always experience excessive scruples and never view things beyond their human or worldly significance. Thus, one will always suffer from vanity, selfishness, self-centeredness, ambition, meanness of heart, vileness of judgment, and a sickly willfulness and attachment to one’s opinions. A person who does not pray may acquire human wisdom and prudence, but not true spiritual freedom or that deep and radical purification of the heart. One will not be able to grasp the depths of divine mercy or know how to make it known to others. His judgment will always end up shortsighted, mistaken, and contemptible. One will never be able to tread God’s ways, which are far different from what many—even those who have committed themselves to a life in the spirit—conceive them to be.

― Jacques Philippe, Time For God

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

(Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.)

― Cardinal Richelieu, French clergyman, noble, and statesman

At a time when nearly all his contemporaries held to the view that "error has no rights," Castellio's plea for toleration and respect for the rights of conscience was certainly exceptional. "To force conscience is worse than cruelly to kill a man," he wrote, "because I must be saved by my own faith and not by that of another... Religion resides not in the body but in the heart, which cannot be reached by the sword of kings and princes. The Church can no more be constructed by persecution and violence than walls can be built by cannon blasts." When Calvin asked how then was the true church to be recognized, Castellio answered, "By an assured faith concerning things which are hoped for, not known, by love which is better than faith and may be clearly discerned, by the doctrine of piety which is to love your enemies, bless those who curse you, to hunger and thirst after righteousness and endure persecution for righteousness' sake."

— Sebastian Castellio in All Saints (1997) by Robert Ellsberg