Paul Tournier Quotes

Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.

In order to really understand, we need to listen, not reply. We need to listen long and attentively. In order to help anybody to open his heart we have to give him time, asking only a few questions, as carefully as possible in order to help him better explain his experience.

That is what marriage really means; helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.

Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.

To be right is dangerous, it has ever been the source of all intolerance.

Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either.

Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, meekness, and a great many other things you wouldn’t need if you had stayed single.

Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.

The real meaning of travel, like that of a conversation by the fireside, is the discovery of oneself through contact with other people, and its condition is self-commitment in the dialogue.

Many ordinary illnesses are nothing but the expression of a serious dissatisfaction with life.

Our task is to live our personal communion with Christ with such intensity as to make it contagious.

The adventurous life is not one exempt from fear, but on the contrary, one that is lived in full knowledge of fears of all kinds, one in which we go forward in spite of our fears.