Truth and beauty ... yield themselves only to whoever surrenders to them—as to a rescuer. - Vilhelm Ekelund

The Jesuit principle: withdrawal from the world—in order to act on the world—was frequently also the principle of genius.

The noble Nazarene ... who raged against "the world," against the philistinism, the halfheartedness, the lack of ideals—if he had guessed that he was forging a weapon for the hands of exactly "this world"—he who sensed the misfortune of humanity so deeply that he didn't find any other solution to its enigma than to entirely reject and turn his back on all that is earthly, would see his name dragged into the service of an intense philistine optimism.

The egotism of wisdom: to burn all that is pettily, painfully, stupidly selfish in the fire of love of spiritual vision and freedom.