Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of oneself to others.”

“It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though limits to our abilities do not exist.”

“He recognized with absolute certainty the empty fragility of even the noblest theorizings as compared with the definitive plenitude of the smallest fact grasped in its total, concrete realit...”

“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.”

“So many things which once had distressed or revolted him — the speeches and pronouncements of the learned, their assertions and their prohibitions, their refusal to allow the universe to mov...”

“You have told me, O God, to believe in hell. But you have forbidden me to think...of any man as damned”

“The most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being.”

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

“There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousn...”

“The most telling and profound way of describing the evolution of the universe would undoubtedly be to trace the evolution of love.”

“The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe—even a positivist one—remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well a...”

“Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action...”

“I am a little too absorbed by science to be able to philosophise much; but the more I look into myself, the more I find myself possessed by the conviction that it is only the science of Chri...”

“Death is acceptable only if it represents the physically necessary passage toward a union, the condition of a metamorphosis.”

“The earth was probably born by accident; but, in accordance with one of the most general laws of evolution, scarcely had this accident happened than it was immediately made use of and recast...”

“If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activiti...”

“All I know is that, thanks to a sort of habit which has always been ingrained in me, I have never, at any moment of my life, experienced the least difficulty in addressing myself to God as t...”

“What I cry out for, like every being, with my whole life and all my earthly passion, is something very different from an equal to cherish: it is a God to adore.”

“Humanity is still advancing; and it will probably continue to advance for hundreds of thousands of years more, always on condition that we know how to keep the same line of advance as our an...”