Jesuit Quotes

Film is something that came later into my life. I had a Jesuit education, and I consider acting and the theater as kind of a calling - a vocation. ~ Michael Moriarty

I've read dozens of interviews and accounts that basically come down to How Poets Do It and the truth is they're all do-lally and they're all different. There's Gerard Manly Hopkins in his black Jesuit clothes lying face down on the ground to look at an individual bluebell, Robert Frost who never used a desk, was once caught short by a poem coming and wrote it on the sole of his shoe, T.S. Eliot in his I'm-not-a-Poet suit with his solid sensible available-for-poetry three hours a day, Ted Hughes folded into his tiny cubicle at the top of the stairs where there is no window, no sight or smell of earth or animal but the rain clatter on the roof bows him to the page, Pablo Neruda who grandly declared poetry should only ever be handwritten, and then added his own little bit of bonkers by saying: in green ink. Poets are their own nation. Most of them know. ~ Niall Williams

I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits ... Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola's. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum. ~ John Adams

If something's public then it seems like the important thing is the person in that public. And the notion of rhetoric. I went to Jesuit schools that focused on first there's grammar, then there's rhetoric, and rhetoric's usually seen as a kind of degraded method, because you're trying to persuade. ~ Vito Acconci

...to become a Christian one did not have to become a European. [Jesuit mission philosophy] ~ John W. O'Malley

My history of the Jesuits is not elegantly written, but is supported by unquestionable authorities, is very particular and very horrible. Their restoration is indeed "a step toward darkness," cruelty, perfidy, despotism, death and I wish we were out of danger of bigotry and Jesuitism. ~ John Adams

The Illuminati Order was preceded in the 1500's in Spain by the 'Alumbrados', a Christian heresy started by crypto-Jews called 'Marranos'. The founder of the Jesuit Order, Ignatius of Loyola, was a Marrano / Alumbrado. Thus when people today argue whether it is the Jesuits or Zionists or Illuminati who are responsible for our troubles, they are really talking about the same beast. ~ Henry Makow

Years ago I heard the Indian Jesuit Raimundo Panikkar say: Expect Nothing. ~ Lawrence Fagg

The holy and learned Jesuit, Father Suarez, was so deeply aware of the value of the Angelic Salutation that he said that he would gladly give all his learning for the price of one Hail Mary that had been said properly. ~ St. Louis De Montfort

Gift better than Himself God doth not know,
Gift better than God no man can see;
This gift doth here the giver given bestow
Gift to this gift let each receiver be;
God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me,
God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. ~ Robert Southwell

The Jesuits have a vow to obey the pope, but if the pope is a Jesuit, maybe he should have a vow to obey the superior general ... I feel like I'm still a Jesuit in terms of my spirituality, what I have in my heart. ~ Pope Francis

The soul, light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child, responds to every movement of grace like a floating balloon. ~ Jean-Pierre De Caussade

They were Jesuits," she told me. "That means they believe in God but not in terlet paper. You should have seen their underwear. Disgusting. ~ David Sedaris

Expose the Jesuit order and learn about the global genocide. Speak out, even when what you have to say is not popular. ~ John Reynaga

When John O'Malley was a Jesuit novice, an older priest told him three things to remember when living in community: First, you're not God. Second, this isn't heaven. Third, don't be an ass. ~ James Martin

Now the road was crossing orange groves in flower, and the nuptial scent of the blossoms absorbed the rest as a full moon does a landscape; the smell of sweating horses, the smell of leather from the carriage upholstery, the smell of Prince and the smell of Jesuit, were all cancelled out by that Islamic perfume evoking houris and fleshly joys beyond the grave. ~ Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

The Supreme Court, the final arbiter of legal conflicts, reviews, acts of the executive and Congress. With this power, the Court is seen as a political institution as well. "Because the key provisions of the Constitution are couched in grand ambiguities and because the key provisions concern the larger issues of our life, of our liberties, and of our happiness, the Supreme Court, by the exercise of judicial review, wields tremendous political power," Joaquin Bernas, a Jesuit priest and constitutionalist, said. ~ Marites Dañguilan Vitug

Two historical figures play prominent roles in this book: a pair of priests who lived centuries apart but who were tied together by fate. During the seventeenth century, Father Athanasius Kircher was known as the Leonardo da Vinci of the Jesuit Order. ~ James Rollins

When Lionel Giles began his translation of Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR, the work was virtually unknown in Europe. Its introduction to Europe began in 1782 when a French Jesuit Father living in China, Joseph Amiot, acquired a copy of it, and translated ~ Sun Tzu

I did a film called The Jesuit, which was an independent film. I did that shortly after Mistresses. I was still feeling soft and I was nursing, but it was a character I'd never played before. That was a Paul Schrader script, with an up-and-coming Mexican director, named Alfonso Ulloa. That has Tim Roth and Paz Vega in it, and I enjoyed that, as well. ~ Shannyn Sossamon

On December 7, 2059, Emilio Sandoz was released from the isolation ward of Salvator Mundi Hospital in the middle of the night and transported in a bread van to the Jesuit residence at Number 5 Borgo Santo Spirito, a few minutes' walk across St. Peter's Square from the Vatican. ~ Mary Doria Russell

In his homilies, this old Jesuit always talked about desire, and how we were connected by our desires. He said the most basic human desire was the desire to be desired by one you desire. ~ Kate Klise

In the villages of the Iroquois, land was owned in common and worked in common. Hunting was done together, and the catch was divided among the members of the village. Houses were considered common property and were shared by several families. The concept of private ownership of land and homes was foreign to the Iroquois. A French Jesuit priest who encountered them in the 1650s wrote: 'No poorhouses are needed among them, because they are neither merchants nor paupers.... Their kindness, humanity and courtesy not only makes them liberal with what they have, but causes them to possess hardly anything except in common. ~ Howard Zinn

Here's a joke about discernment: A woman asks her local priest for advice. "Father," she says, "I have a little boy who is six months old. And I'm curious to know what he will be when he grows up." The priest says, "Place before him three things: a bottle of whiskey, a dollar bill, and a Bible. If he picks the bottle of whiskey, he'll be a bartender. If he picks the dollar bill, a business man. And if he picks the Bible, a priest." So the mother thanks him and goes home. The next week she returns. "Well," said the priest, "which one did he pick: the whiskey, the dollar bill, or the Bible?" She says, "He picked all three!" "Ah," says the priest, "a Jesuit! ~ James Martin

Well, I've been in several films including documentaries, but the big blockbuster, I was hired as advisor to the actors, I was trying to make Jesuits out of them. ~ Daniel Berrigan

The boy, called Urbain, is now fourteen years old and wonderfully clever. He deserves to be given the best of educations, and in the neighborhood of Saintes the best education available is to be had at the Jesuit College of Bordeaux. This celebrated seat of learning comprised a high school for boys, a liberal arts college, a seminary, and a School of Advanced Studies for ordained postgraduates. Here the precociously brilliant Urbain Grandier spent more than ten years, first as schoolboy, and later as undergraduate, theological student and, after his ordination in 1615, as Jesuit novice. Not that he intended to enter the Company; for he felt no vocation to subject himself to so rigid a discipline. No, his career was to be made, not in a religious order, but as a secular priest. ~ Aldous Huxley

Being a mixed-blood person of Ojibway and European ancestry, I always found that I only heard one side of the story - that was the conquerers' side, the side of the French Jesuit missionaries that came to live in what is now Ontario. ~ Joseph Boyden

Even as a small child, I wondered why the Dominican nuns who educated me were subservient to the Jesuit priests who educated my brothers. ~ Janine Di Giovanni

Boxing the Jesuit?" Stephan nudged Grey with an elbow, and raised thick blond brows in puzzlement. "Cockroaches? What does this mean, please?"

"Ahhh…" Having no notion of the German equivalent of this expression, Grey resorted to a briefly graphic gesture with one hand, looking over his shoulder to be sure that none of the women was watching.

"Oh!" Von Namtzen looked mildly startled, but then grinned widely. "I see, yes, very good! ~ Diana Gabaldon

As soon as Russians feel the ground under their feet and are confident that they have reached firm ground, they are so delighted at reaching it that they rush at once to the furthest limit. Why is that? You are surprised at Pavlishtchev, and you put it down to madness on his part, or to simplicity. But it's not that! And Russian intensity in such cases is a surprise not to us only but to all Europe. If one of us turns Catholic, he is bound to become a Jesuit, and one of the most underground. If he becomes an atheist, he's sure to clamour for the extirpation of belief in God by force, that is, by the sword. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Everybody was talking about the religious man who committed suicide.
While no one in the monastery approved of the man's action, some say they admired his faith.
Faith?" said the Master.
He had the courage of his convictions, didn't he?"
That was fanaticism, not faith. Faith demands a greater courage still: to reexamine one's convictions and reject them if they do not fit the facts. ~ Anthony De Mello

Well O. the thing's sick. It's even sicker than 4. Was it 4? The one you said that Loach inspired, where you'd supposedly just that very day dropped out of Jesuit seminary after umpteen years of disciplined celibacy because of carno-spiritual yearnings you hadn't even been quite in touch with as carno-spiritual in nature until you just now this very moment laid eyes on the Subject? With the breviary and rented collar?'

'That was 4, yes. 4's pretty much of a gynecopia also, but within a kind of narrower demographic psychological range of potential Subjects. Notice I never said 4 was no-miss.'

'Well you must be a very proud young man. This is even sicker. The fake ring and fictional spouse. It's like you're inventing somebody you love just to seduce somebody else into helping you betray her. What's it like. It's like suborning somebody into helping you desecrate a tomb they don't know is empty.'

'This is what I get for passing down priceless fruits of hard experience to somebody who still thinks it's exciting to shave.'

'I ought to go. I have a blackhead I have to see to.'

'You haven't asked why I called right back. Why I'm calling during high-toll hours.'

'Plus I feel some kind of toothache starting, and it's the weekend, and I want to see Schacht before Mrs. Clarke's confectionery day in the sun tomorrow. Plus I'm naked. ~ David Foster Wallace

Well, in this case,' said Chichikov, 'I haven't lied by even this much,' and with his thumb he marked off the very tip of his little finger.
'You Jesuit, you Jesuit! I'll bet you anything you're talking rot!'
'Listen, this is insulting! What's going on, anyway? Why do you think I have to be lying? ~ Nikolai Gogol

It was served of the Jesuits, that they constantly inculcated a thorough contempt of worldly things in their doctrines, but eagerly grasped at them in their lives. They were wise in their generation; for they cried down worldly things because they wanted to obtain them, and cried up spiritual things, because they wanted to dispose of them. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

In the end, only the truth will survive. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

The shrieks were coming from two quite naked girls, who were pursued by a pair of apes snapping at their bottoms. [...] So he now raises his double-barrelled Spanish rifle, fires and kills both apes. 'God be praised, my dear Calambo! I have delivered these two poor creatures from grave peril; if it was a sin to kill an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made ample amends by saving the lives of two girls [...]'
He was about to continue, but words failed him when he saw the two girls throw their arms lovingly around the two apes and collapse in tears over their corpses, filling the air with the most pitiful lamentations. 'I was not expecting quite so much tenderness of heart,' he said at last to Cacambo, who replied: 'You've excelled yourself this time, Master; you have just despatched the two lovers of these young ladies.' '-Their lovers! Is it possible? You're making fun of me, Cacambo; how could anyone believe in such a thing?' - 'My dear Master,' retorted Cacambo, 'you are always astounished by everything; why do you find it so strange that in some countries it is apes who enjoy the favours of young ladies? After all, they are one-quarter human, just as I am one-quarter Spanish. ~ Voltaire

The Jesuits I know who have died and all their lives were great teachers, they're the least remembered people. ~ Daniel Berrigan

But it was true. I was constantly surprised how the storied names of biblical locales popped up in the most familiar of circumstances: on a simple map, on a graffitied street sign, or in everyday conversations. "The traffic to Bethlehem was terrible last night!" said a Jesuit over dinner one night. Which still didn't beat "Gehenna is lovely. ~ James Martin

Hundreds of people began to care in a personal way about the suffering of farm workers because they care about you and learned that you were willing to go to jail with striking farm workers," Chris wrote the delegates from the Jesuit spirituality conference. He apologized profusely for having misled them into thinking they would be out in a few days. But no one complained. They told Chris the two weeks ranked among the most moving times of their lives. The gripes came from those who had opted for the picket line that obeyed the injunctions. They had been forced to make the decision too fast, they grumbled to Chris.

Chris saw the saga as a modern parable, and he loved to tell the story: The people who played it safe, unwilling to risk arrest, ended up feeling cheated and angry. Those willing to sacrifice emerged from the ordeal enriched, certain that the experience had changed their lives. ~ Miriam Pawel

The difference between a regular Catholic education and a Jesuit education is the difference between the army and the marines. ~ Gary Reilly

Learning about Poverty'. 'Two young American Jesuits showed up at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome. Father Arrupe asked what assignment had brought them there. They explained that they were on their way to India to work with the poor, as part of their training. Afterward Arrupe said to an assistant, 'it certainly costs us a lot of money to teach our men about poverty'. ~ James Martin

Dan Brown is a character from 'Foucault's Pendulum!' I invented him. He shares my characters' fascinations - the world conspiracy of Rosicrucians, Masons, and Jesuits. The role of the Knights Templar. The hermetic secret. The principle that everything is connected. I suspect Dan Brown might not even exist. ~ Umberto Eco

At times, Mario Cuomo seemed to have the humility of a Jesuit and the goals of an emperor. ~ Mike Barnicle

The war, the American Civil War of 1861-1865, would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits. ~ Abraham Lincoln

A modern historian has described the struggle between Jews and Jesuits as a "struggle between two rivals," in which the "higher Jesuit clergy and the Jewish plutocracy stood facing one another in the middle of France like two invisible lines of battle."50 The description is true insofar as the Jews found in the Jesuits their first unappeasable foes, while the latter came promptly to realize how powerful a weapon antisemitism could be. This was the first attempt and the only one prior to Hitler to exploit the "major political concept"51 of antisemitism on a Pan-European scale. ~ Hannah Arendt

Stage fright, like epilepsy, is a divine ailment, a sacred madness ... It is a grace that is sufficient in the old Jesuit sense - that is, insufficient by itself but a necessary condition for success. ~ Charles Rosen

I was suppose to be a Jesuit priest or a naval academy graduate. ~ Jimmy Buffett

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I was applying for campus housing and overheard Andy telling my mother that the only way I was going to be safe from all the sexual assaults he'd heard about on National Public Radio was if I lived in an all-girl dorm.
Never mind that I have been kicking the butts of the undead since I was in elementary school, and that almost the entire time I resided under Andy's roof, I had a hot undead guy living in my bedroom. These are two of those secrets I was telling you about. Andy doesn't know about them, and neither does my mother. They think Jesse is what Father Dominic told them he is: a "young Jesuit student who transferred to the Carmel Mission from Mexico, then lost his yearning to go into the priesthood" after meeting me.
That one slays me every time. ~ Meg Cabot

The monk, the inquisitor, and the Jesuit were lords of Spain,- sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow mind of that tyrannical recluse. They had formed the minds of her people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy, and given over a noble nation to a bigotry blind and inexorable as the doom of fate. Linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong nature, potent for good and ill, it made the Spaniard of that day a scourge as dire as ever fell on man. ~ Francis Parkman

Marists are workers, we do all the work and Jesuits just think about it. ~ Warren Mundine

It is no accident that, of the early Jesuit scholars who were pioneers in making China's culture known in Europe, those who concerned themselves with the Book of Changes were all later declared to be insane or heretic. Indeed, to the Chinese themselves the study of the I Ching is not to be taken lightly. By an unwritten law, only those advanced in years regard themselves as ready to learn from it. Confucius is said to have been seventy years old when he first took up the Book of Changes. ~ Hellmut Wilhelm

It's always gratifying to share a hobby with a friend, and pining for erstwhile suitors falls into that category. In the months to come, Libby and I would analyze our respective exes with the gusto and intellectual rigor of Jesuits. ~ Patricia Marx

...to lead an individual along a spiritual path consonant with the person's gifts and personality...[The Jesuit training of novitiates and lay students] ~ John W. O'Malley

One of my favorite definitions of enlightenment comes from a Jesuit priest named Anthony de Mello, who passed away some years ago. Someone asked him to define his experience of enlightenment. He said, "Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable." I love that, because it defines enlightenment not just as a realization, but as an activity. Enlightenment is when everything within us is in cooperation with the flow of life itself, with the inevitable. ~ Adyashanti

Love at first sight is a hypnosis: I am fascinated by an image: at first shaken, electrified, stunned, "paralysed" as Menon was by Socrates, the model of loved objects, of captivating images, or again converted by an apparition, nothing distinguishing the path of enamoration from the Road to Damascus; subsequently ensnared, held fast, immobilised, nose stuck to the image (the mirror). In that moment when the other's image comes to ravish me for the first time, I am nothing more than the Jesuit Athanasius Kirchner's wonderful Hen: feet tied, the hen went to sleep with her eyes fixed on the chalk line, which was traced not far from her beak; when she was untied, she remained motionless, fascinated, "submitting to her vanquisher," as the Jesuit says (1646); yet, to waken her from her enchantment, to break off the violence of her Image-repertoire (vehemens animalis imaginatio), it was enough to tap her on the wing; she shook herself and began pecking in the dust again. ~ Roland Barthes

I'm very impressed by the imagery in the 'Apologia', which is a kind of sustained poem. It's not just a piece of apologetics of the sort you find in Jesuit literature: 'Why I came over', and so on. It's a tremendously rewarding book but requires perseverance on the part of the reader. ~ John Cornwell

There is something still more to be dreaded than a Jesuit and that is a Jesuitess. ~ Eugene Sue

The last lingering shadow of the Jesuit, gliding behind curtains and concealing himself in cupboards, faded from my young life about the time when I first caught a distant glimpse of the late Father Bernard Vaughan. He was the only Jesuit I ever knew in those days; and as you could generally hear him half a mile away, he seemed to be ill-selected for the duties of a curtain-glider. ~ G.K. Chesterton

When seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune lectured a Montagnais Indian man about the dangers of the rampant infidelity he'd witnessed, Le Jeune received a lesson on proper parenthood in response. The missionary recalled, "I told him that it was not honorable for a woman to love any one else except her husband, and that this evil being among them, he himself was not sure that his son, who was there present, was his son. He replied, 'Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children; but we all love all the children of our tribe.'"5 ~ Christopher Ryan

„Hitler", wrote Herman Rauschning in 1939, „ has a deep respect for the Catholic church and the Jesuit order, not because of their Christian doctrine, but because of the ´machinery they have elaborated and controlled, their hierarchical system, their extremely clever tactics, their knowledge of human nature and their wise use of human weaknesses in ruling over believers. ~ Aldous Huxley