“His face frankly displays his suffering, expressing it with a truly royal simplicity. At such moments even the very best people are apt to give themselves away with the kind of look which says to you more or less directly: 'You see how I'm sticking it out; don't praise me, it's my nature; thanks all the same.' But the Curé de Torcy looks straight at you, guilelessly. His eyes beg your compassion and sympathy. But with what nobility they beg! A king might beg in just that way.”

“His face frankly displays his suffering, expressing it with a truly royal simplicity. At such moments even the very best people are apt to give themselves away with the kind of look which says to you more or less directly: 'You see how I'm sticking it out; don't praise me, it's my nature; thanks all the same.' But the Curé de Torcy looks straight at you, guilelessly. His eyes beg your compassion and sympathy. But with what nobility they beg! A king might beg in just that way.”

“The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.”

“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.”

“Faith is not a thing which one 'loses', we merely cease to shape our lives by it.”

“It is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man.”

“Hell, madam, is to love no longer.”

“Hope is a risk that must be run.”

“Our rages daughters of despair creep and squirm like worms. Prayer is the only form of revolt which remains upright.”

“Hope is a risk that must be run.”

“Hell madame is to love no longer.”

“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.”