Paul Tournier

Author

1898-05-12

Quotes by Paul Tournier

• But in practice, every psychological confession has religious significance, and every religious confession, whether ritual and sacramental or free, its psychological effects. It is perhaps in this fact that we perceive most clearly the unity of the human being, and how impossible it is to dissociate the physical, psychological and religious aspects of his life. Every doctor, even without specializing in psychotherapy, in so far as he has understanding of what is human and likes contact with human beings, may suddenly find himself promoted to a confessor's priesthood without having sought it.

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• I have treated many artists. There are among them many neurotics, so many that one finally comes to believe that one cannot be an artist without being neurotic. Again I found in them that inner conflict which is characteristic of modern man: the conflict between a right intuition (namely, that their vocation has fundamental importance for the destiny of humanity) and a false idea (namely, that art is superfluous luxury).

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• Disgusted by the abuses to which it led, humanity repressed Christianity by which it had so long been dominated. Repressed, but not eliminated. Herein lies, I believe, the essence of the tragedy of modern times. The modern man lives as if Christianity were a negligible hypothesis with no relation to the concrete realities of the world and society. And yet at the bottom of his heart this man remains impregnated with Christianity, so that he lives in a state of perpetual ambivalence with regard to it.

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• I have treated many artists. There are among them many neurotics, so many that one finally comes to believe that one cannot be an artist without being neurotic. Again I found in them that inner conflict which is characteristic of modern man: the conflict between a right intuition (namely, that their vocation has fundamental importance for the destiny of humanity) and a false idea (namely, that art is superfluous luxury).

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• Disgusted by the abuses to which it led, humanity repressed Christianity by which it had so long been dominated. Repressed, but not eliminated. Herein lies, I believe, the essence of the tragedy of modern times. The modern man lives as if Christianity were a negligible hypothesis with no relation to the concrete realities of the world and society. And yet at the bottom of his heart this man remains impregnated with Christianity, so that he lives in a state of perpetual ambivalence with regard to it.

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• But in practice, every psychological confession has religious significance, and every religious confession, whether ritual and sacramental or free, its psychological effects. It is perhaps in this fact that we perceive most clearly the unity of the human being, and how impossible it is to dissociate the physical, psychological and religious aspects of his life. Every doctor, even without specializing in psychotherapy, in so far as he has understanding of what is human and likes contact with human beings, may suddenly find himself promoted to a confessor's priesthood without having sought it.

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• Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.

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

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• The more refined and subtle our minds, the more vulnerable they are.

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• At the heart of personality is the need to feel a sense of being lovable without having to qualify for that acceptance.

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• Nobody can develop freely in this world and find a full life without feeling understood by at least one person.

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• No one can develop freely in this world and find a full life without feeling understood by at least one person.

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