Texts by Ozanam

Dear friend, we have not faith enough; we are always looking for the re-establishment of religion by political means; we dream of a Constantine who, with one blow and one effort, would bring back the nations to the fold. The fact is we don't really know the history of...

Dear friend, you are continually starting on long and fatiguing journeys that are not without danger to your health, already so severely tried. Bear, then, with my anxiety. You say you are seeking to create new sources of interest for yourself, and, with that great...

Let us learn, above all, to defend our convictions without hating our adversaries, to love those who think differently than we do, to recognize that there are Christians in all fields, and that God can be served today as always. Let us complain less of our time and...

I do not like and do not share in any way the rigorist doctrines of some Christians, who, without even realizing it, have in these matters the arrogance and false Protestant modesty, and are far from the true spirit of faith. The innocent joys were never proscribed....

We are convinced that the science of charitable reforms is not learned in the books or in the tribunes of the public assemblies, but by going up to the hovels of the poor, sitting at their bedhead, suffering the cold they suffer, getting, with the outpouring of a...

We are, all of us, like the weavers of the Gobelins, who, following out the pattern of an unknown artist, endeavor to match the threads of divers colors on the wrong side of the woof, and do not see the result of their labor. It is only when the texture is complete...

What a moment was that, when I heard the last cry of my beloved wife and the first cry of my daughter, when I saw that creature, small but immortal, that God put in my hands, that made me feel great tenderness and also so many obligations! With what impatience I...