Léon Bloy

Léon Bloy (11 July 1846 – 3 November 1917), was a French

novelist, essayist, pamphleteer and poet.

Contents
Quotes
Pilgrim of the Absolute (1947)
Léon Bloy quoted in other publications
Quotes about Léon Bloy
External links

Quotes
Tu seras invendable à perpétuité, l'Invendable, dans tes
My anger is the effervescence of my
livres aussi bien que dans ta personne, et ainsi se
pity.
réalisera tout à fait la séparation, naturellement désirée
par toi, d'avec les vendeurs et les gens à vendre.
You will be unsaleable in perpetuity, the Unsaleable, in
your books as well as in your person, and thus will be
definitively realized the separation, naturally desired by
you, from the sellers and people for sale.
L'Invendable (1909), p. 8

Pilgrim of the Absolute (1947)

edited by Raissa Maritain

Woe to him who has not begged!

One sees the world's evil
There is nothing more exalted than to beg.
accurately only by exaggerating it.
God begs. The Angels beg. Kings, Prophets, and Saints
beg.
p. 1

Ah! The happy ones of this world who are assured their daily bread—that is, all the things
necessary to bodily life—and who, not wishing to know Jesus, have never for one single
instant had the idea of suffering for their brothers, of sacrificing themselves for the wretched:
ah! indeed! such people are assuredly well qualified to judge me and to reproach me for not
having what the world calls dignity!
 p. 2

My anger is the effervescence of my pity.

p. 12

Unhappy writer, you had dreamt of winning souls and

you have won nothing but ears!
p. 36

You had hoped that the beloved and noble images

flowing from your heart would serve as a river to carry to
God many another heart! But, as you see, people are
afraid of getting wet.
p. 36

One sees the world's evil accurately only by

exaggerating it. The avaricious man ... proclaims that
p. 87 money is the only good, and he
yields it all his soul.
A perfectly true thought, expressed in very sound terms,
can satisfy the reason without giving any impression of
the Beautiful; but in that case certainly there is
something false in its statement. It is essential that Truth
be in Glory. Splendor of style is not a luxury. It is a
necessity.
p. 88

Of course the avaricious man of our day, be he landlord,

merchant, industrialist, does not adore sacks of coins or
bundles of banknotes in some little chapel and upon
some little altar. He does not kneel before these spoils of
other men, nor does he address prayers or canticles to
them amidst odorous clouds of incense. But he
proclaims that money is the only good, and he yields it
all his soul. A cult sincere, without hypocrisy, never It is essential that Truth be in Glory.
growing weary, never forsworn. Whenever he says, in Splendor of style is not a luxury. It is
the debasement of his heart and his speech, that he a necessity.
loves money for the delights it can purchase, he lies or
he terribly deceives himself, this very assertion being
belied at the very moment he utters it by every one of his acts, by the infinite toil and pains to
which he gladly condemns himself in order to acquire or conserve that money which is but
the visible figure of the Blood of Christ circulating throughout all His members.
pp. 89-90

Of the truths which embarrass him he thinks it better to remain unaware.

"The Wisdom of the Bourgeois," p. 98

The Bourgeois who has religious feelings sees very clearly the absolute necessity of
serving two masters at the same time in order to achieve success in his business, which
naturally comes before everything else.
p. 113
 I see from time to time coins that are tinted with red, having been handled by a butcher or a
murderer, and the sight of that money makes me wonder. As I think about the probable origin
of that sign of wealth, I tell myself that that is indeed its true color, the color which it should,
which it must have, the color that was doubtless taken on by Judas’s pieces of silver (http://bi
blehub.com/matthew/26-15.htm), after which he ceased to recognize them and returned
them (http://biblehub.com/matthew/27-3.htm) at once to the egregious scoundrels who had
given them to him. These, not recognizing the pieces themselves, did not want to return to
the treasury of the Temple money so strange in its color. Everyone knows they used it to buy
the field of blood (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27%3A6-8&vers
ion=NKJV), a generic name which I imagine can be applied to all bourgeois holdings ever
since the Scourging and Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
p. 120

The rich have a horror of Poverty because they have a dim foreboding of the expiatory
interchange implied by her presence.
p. 125

The exercise of freedom consists in stripping oneself of one's own will.

p. 292

You are always on the right side when you are with those who suffer persecution and
injustice.
p. 293

Léon Bloy quoted in other publications

Any Christian who is not a hero is a pig.
Shouts and Whispers: Twenty-One Writers Speak
about Their Writing and Their Faith, Jennifer L.
Holberg, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 31 march
2006 Shouts and Whispers: Twenty-One Writers
Speak about Their Writing and Their Faith, Jennifer
L. Holberg, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 31 march
2006 (https://books.google.com.br/books?id=MSHQ
wCakou0C&pg=PA153&dq=Leon+Bloy+any+christi
an+who+is+not+a+hero+is+a+pig&hl=pt-BR&sa=X& There is only one tragedy in the end,
ved=0CBsQ6AEwAGoVChMIrt-3rLf5yAIVy5KQCh00 not to have been a saint.
zwt7#v=onepage&q=Leon%20Bloy%20any%20chris
tian%20who%20is%20not%20a%20hero%20is%20
a%20pig&f=false)

There is only one tragedy in the end, not to have been a saint.
in Catholic Christianity: A Complete Catechism of Catholic Beliefs Based on the
Catechism of the Catholic Church by Peter Kreeft (Ignatius Press, 2001)

The worst thing is not to commit crimes but, rather, not to accomplish the good that one could
have done. It is the sin of omission, which is nothing other than to be unloving, and no one
accuses himself of it.
 Youcat English: Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, Ignatius Press, 2011 (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=soVf9Q1h-esC&pg=PT26&dq=%22The+worst+thing+is+not+
to+commit+crimes+but,+rather,+not+to+accomplish+the+good+that+one+could+have+d
one.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI3_bSqOH6yAIVwvI-Ch3kOAGF#
v=onepage&q=%22The%20worst%20thing%20is%20not%20to%20commit%20crimes%
20but%2C%20rather%2C%20not%20to%20accomplish%20the%20good%20that%20on
e%20could%20have%20done.%22&f=false)

Suffering passes, but the fact of having suffered never passes.

Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 19, Association of Existential
Psychology and Psychiatry., 1984 [Association of Existential Psychology and
Psychiatry., 1984]

It is the small flock of God. "Whoever receives in my name one of those little" said Jesus, "It
is myself who receives." What thinks the one that sticks, that maims, or inflicts to their pure
souls more black sorrow than death? (...) The curse of a crowd of children, is a cataclysm, a
horror prodigy, a chain of dark mountains in the sky, with a cavalcade of thunder and
lightning in their tops. It is the infinite of the cries of all deep, is a not know what highly
powerful unforgiving and extinguishing any hope of forgiveness.
Léon Bloy, Octavio de Faria, portuguese edition, page 101. Léon Bloy, Octavio de Faria,
portuguese edition, page 101. (https://books.google.com.br/books?id=wI4SAAAAYAAJ&
q=%C3%89+o+rebanho+dos+pequenos+de+Deus.+%22Quem+quer+que+receba+em+
meu+nome+um+desses+pequenos%22+disse+Jesus&dq=%C3%89+o+rebanho+dos+p
equenos+de+Deus.+%22Quem+quer+que+receba+em+meu+nome+um+desses+peque
nos%22+disse+Jesus&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAGoVChMI0Ovrgrn5yAIVQp
GQCh3fFwGB)

Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength, but it makes you see
the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it.
in Auden, W.H.; Kronenberger, Louis (1966), The Viking Book of Aphorisms', New York:
Viking Press.

Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil.

quoted by Pope Francis in his first homily as Pope. Pope Francis: 1st homily. Missa pro
Ecclesiae in the Sistine Chapel (http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-1st-homily-ful
l-text)

"My secret," he would say to me, "consists in loving with my whole soul, to the point of giving
my life for them, the souls called to read me some day."
Jacques Maritain, Introduction to 1947 edition of Pilgrim of the Absolute, p. xxiii

Quotes about Léon Bloy

Bloy ... believed that those who are wealthy and who keep their wealth for themselves even
as the poor continue to suffer and perish, are in God's eyes the murderers of their brothers
and sisters.
David Bentley Hart, introduction to 2017 edition of Pilgrim of the Absolute, p. ix

His violence was the obverse of a charity lashed by incomparable storms, which had
reached the end of its patience.
 Jacques Maritain, Introduction to 1947 edition of Pilgrim of the Absolute, p. xxii

Instead of being a whited sepulchre like the Pharisees of all times, he was a charred
blackened cathedral.
Jacques Maritain, Introduction to 1947 edition of Pilgrim of the Absolute, p. xxii

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Léon_Bloy&oldid=2720340"

This page was last edited on 7 January 2020, at 14:26.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using
this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.