André Trocmé > Quotes

“If I have sinned so much, if I have been, since then, so solitary, if my soul has taken such a swirling and solitary movement, if I have doubted everything, if I have been a fatalist, and have been a pessimistic child who awaits death every day, and who almost seeks it out, if I have opened myself slowly and late to happiness, and if I am still a somber man, incapable of laughing whole-heartedly, it is because you left me that June 24th upon that road.

But if I have believed in eternal realities . . . if I have thrust myself toward them, it is also because I was alone, because you were no longer there to be my God, to fill my heart with your abundant and dominating life.”
― André Trocmé

“We do not decide to be nonviolent or truthful in advance as if we had an outline, a moral blueprint to follow automatically. Events appear almost always as a series of little, unexpected problems we must solve one at a time. We choose between two alternatives, one of which, in the final analysis, appears closer than the other to the laws of Jesus Christ. In that moment, one is sure of nothing.”
― André Trocmé, The Memoirs of André Trocmé: The Pastor Who Rescued Jews

“If I have been a fatalist, and have been a pessimistic child who awaits death every day, and who almost seeks it out, if I have opened myself slowly and late to happiness, and if I am still a somber man, incapable of laughing whole-heartedly, if it's because you left me that June 24th upon that road.
"But if I have believed in eternal realities ... if I have thrust myself toward them, it is also because I was alone, because you were no longer there to be my God, to fill my heart with your abundant and dominating life.”
― André Trocmé