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21 " It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt. "
― Shūsaku Endō , Silence
22 " But pity was not action. It was not love. Pity, like passion, was no more than a kind of instinct. "
23 " Man is a strange being. He always has a feeling somewhere in his heart that whatever the danger he will pull through. It's just like when on a rainy day you imagine the faint rays of the sun shining on a distant hill. "
24 " There are neither the strong nor the weak. Can anyone say that the weak do not suffer more than the strong? "
25 " We priests are in some ways a sad group of men. Born into the world to render service to mankind, there is no one more wretchedly alone than the priest who does not measure up to his task. "
26 " Prayer does nothing to alleviate suffering. "
27 " If we did not believe that truth is universal, why should so many missionaries endure these hardships? It is precisely because truth is common to all countries and all times that we call it truth. If a true doctrine were not true alike in Portugal and Japan we could not call it true. "
28 " No doubt his fellow priests would condemn his act as sacrilege; but even if he was betraying them, he was not betraying his Lord. He loved him now in a different way from before. Everything that had taken place until now had been necessary to bring him to this love. 'Even now I am the last priest in this land. But Our Lord was not silent. Even if he had been silent, my life until this day would have spoken of him. "
29 " What do I want to say? I myself do not quite understand. Only that today, when for the glory of God Mokichi and Ichizo moaned, suffered and died, I cannot bear the monotonous sound of the dark sea gnawing at the shore. Behind the depressing silence of this sea, the silence of God....the feeling that while men raise their voices in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent. "
30 " People are linked together by enmity than by love. "
― Shūsaku Endō , Deep River
31 " I tell you the truth - for a long, long time these farmers have worked like horses and cattle; and like horses and cattle they have died. The reason our religion has penetrated this territory like water flowing into dry earth is that it has given this group of people a human warmth they never previously knew. For the first time they have met men who treated them like human beings. It was the human kindness and charity of the fathers that touched their hearts. "
32 " كان ذلك هو البحر الذى اكتسح دون هوادة جثتى موكيشى و ايشيزو البحر الذى أبتلعهما البحر الذى أمتد عقب حتفهما بلا انتهاء بملامح لم تعرف التغيير شأن البحر كان الله صامتا, تطاول صمته "
33 " And yet, rather than this I know that my Lord is different from the God that is preached in the churches. "
34 " Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men's pain that I carried my cross. "
35 " They were martyred. But what a martyrdom! I had long read about martyrdom in the lives of the saints--how the souls of the martyrs had gone home to Heaven, how they had been filled with glory in Paradise, how the angels had blown trumpets. This was the splendid martyrdom I had often seen in my dreams. But the martyrdom of the Japanese Christians I now describe to you was no such glorious thing. What a miserable and painful business it was! "
36 " Stupefied he gazed at the old man who, naïve as a child, returned his glance still rubbing his hands. How could he have recognized one who so utterly betrayed all his expectations? The man whom Valignano had called a devil, who had made the missionaries apostatize one by one--until now he had envisaged the face of this man as pale and crafty. But here before his very eyes sat this understanding, seemingly good, meek man. "
37 " The wisdom of peasants shows itself in their ability to pretend that they are fools. "
38 " At night as he lay in bed with his eyes closed listening to the song of the turtledove in the trees, behind his closed eyelids he would pass through every scene in the life of Christ. From childhood the face of Christ had been for him the fulfillment of his every dream and ideal. The face of Christ as he preached to the crowd the Sermon on the Mount. The face of Christ as he passed over the Lake of Galilee at dusk. Even in its moments of terrble torture this face had never lost its beauty. Those soft, clear eyes which pierced to the very core of a man's being were now fixed upon him. The face that could do no wrong, utter no word of insult. When the vision of this face came before him, fear and trembling seemed to vanquish like the tiny ripples that are quietly sucked up by the sand of the seashore. "
39 " Just as with all interpersonal relationships in our life, we are made to suffer by those things we have chosen and, in confronting our choices, we gradually discover ourselves. "
― Shūsaku Endō , Foreign Studies
40 " For the first time in her life Tomoe came to the realization that there are fools and fools. A man who loves others with an open-hearted simplicity, who trusts others, no matter who they are, even if he is deceived or even betrayed-- such a man in the present-day world is bound to be written off as a fool. And so he is. But not just an ordinary fool. He is a wonderful fool. He is a wonderful fool who will never allow the little light which he sheds along man's way to go out. "
― Shūsaku Endō , Wonderful Fool