“Life is the desert, life the solitude;
Death joins us to the great majority.”

“No more let life divide what death can join together.”

“If life, liberty, and property could be enjoyed in as great perfection in solitude as in society, there would be no need of government.”

“Life and death merge in greatness.”

“No prophet ever encountered God without withdrawing into solitude and silence. Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist encountered God in the great silence of the desert. Today, too, monks seek God in solitude and silence. I am speaking, not just about geographical solitude or movement, but about an interior state. It is not enough to be quiet, either. It is necessary to become silence. For, even before the desert, the solitude and the silence, God is already in man. The true desert is within us, in our soul. Strengthened with this knowledge, we can understand how silence is indispensable if we are to find God. The Father waits for his children in their own hearts.”

“Life inspires more dread than death — it is life which is the great unknown.”

“Life — life — life! 'Tis the sole great thing
This side of death,
Heart on heart in the wonder of Spring!”

“With a mind not diseased, a holy life is a life of hope; and at the end of it, death is a great act of hope.”

“This is a great fact: strength is life; weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery, weakness is death.”

“Life, not death, is the great mystery you must confront.”