“There is only one misery . . . not to be saints.”
Léon Bloy“There is only one misery . . . not to be saints.”
Léon Bloy, The Woman Who Was Poor: A Novel“I pray like a robber asking alms at the door of a farmhouse to which he is ready to set fire.”
Leon Bloy“Every man who begets a free act projects his personality into the infinite. If he gives a poor man a penny grudgingly, that penny pierces the poor man’s hand, falls, pierces the earth, bores holes in suns, crosses the firmament and compromises the universe. If he begets an impure act, he perhaps darkens thousands of hearts whom he does not know, who are mysteriously linked to him, and who need this man to be pure as a traveller dying of thirst needs the Gospel’s draught of water. A charitable act, an impulse of real pity sings for him the divine praises, from the time of Adam to the end of the ages; it cures the sick, consoles those in despair, calms storms, ransoms prisoners, converts the infidel and protects mankind”
Léon Bloy“The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”
Léon Bloy“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have existence.”
Léon Bloy“The worst evil is not to commit crimes, but to fail to do the good one might have done.”
Léon Bloy“Léon Bloy wrote: 'Life holds only one tragedy: not to have been a saint”
Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners“As a general rule, desire is always marketable: we don’t do anything but sell, buy, exchange desires. . . . And I think of Bloy’s words: “there is nothing perfectly beautiful except what is invisible and above all unbuyable.”
Roland Barthes, The Neutral: Lecture Course at the Collège de France, 1977-1978“Every man who begets a free act projects his personality into the infinite. If he gives a poor man a penny grudgingly, that penny pierces the poor man’s hand, falls, pierces the earth, bores holes in suns, crosses the firmament and compromises the universe. If he begets an impure act, he perhaps darkens thousands of hearts whom he does not know, who are mysteriously linked to him, and who need this man to be pure as a traveler dying of thirst needs the Gospel’s draught of water. A charitable act, an impulse of real pity sings for him the divine praises, from the time of Adam to the end of the ages; it cures the sick, consoles those in despair, calms storms, ransoms prisoners, converts the infidel and protects mankind”
Léon Bloy, Pilgrim of the Absolute