16 quotes
The wisdom of peasants shows itself in their ability to pretend that they are fools.
Silence (1966)
"When you suffer, I suffer with you. To the end I am close to you."
Silence (1966)
"Lord, why are you silent? Why are you always silent...?"
Silence (1966)
"There are neither the strong nor the weak. Can anyone say that the weak do not suffer more than the strong?"
Silence (1966)
In order to pile weakness upon weakness he was trying to drag others along the path that he himself had walked.
Silence (1966)
The reason why darkness is terrifying for us, he reflected, is that there remains in us the instinctive fear the primitive man had when there was as yet no light.
Silence (1966)
We priests are in some ways a sad group of men. Born into the world to render service to mankind, there is no one more wretchedly alone than the priest who does not measure up to his task.
Silence (1966)
Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.
Silence (1966)
"Even now I am the last priest in this land. But Our Lord was not silent. Even if he had been silent, my life until this day would have spoken of him."
Silence (1966)
His pity for them had been overwhelming; but pity was not action. It was not love. Pity, like passion, was no more than a kind of instinct.
Silence (1966)
Man is a strange being. He always has a feeling somewhere in his heart that whatever the danger he will pull through. It’s just like when on a rainy day you imagine the faint rays of the sun shining on a distant hill.
Silence (1966)
Sin, he reflected, is not what it is usually thought to be; it is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he has left behind.
Silence (1966)
He was distracted by the tormenting pain of the rope which bit into his wrists whenever he moved his body, but what grieved him most was his inability to love these people as Christ had loved them.
Silence (1966)
How his foot aches! And then the Christ in bronze speaks to the priest: "Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men’s pain that I carried my cross."
Silence (1966)
"If we did not believe that truth is universal, why should so many missionaries endure these hardships? It is precisely because truth is common to all countries and all times that we call it truth. If a true doctrine were not true alike in Portugal and Japan we could not call it 'true'."
Silence (1966)
Already twenty years have passed since the persecution broke out; the black soil of Japan has been filled with the lament of so many Christians; the red blood of priests has flowed profusely; the walls of the churches have fallen down; and in the face of this terrible and merciless sacrifice offered up to Him, God has remained silent.
Silence (1966)