Quotes by Paul Tournier

About Paul Tournier:

Paul Tournier was a Swiss physician and author who had acquired a worldwide audience for his work in pastoral counseling. His ideas had a significant impact on the spiritual and psychosocial aspects of routine patient care, and he has been called the twentieth century's most famous Christian physician.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.

Paul Tournier

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 conf...

Paul Tournier

Now, we shall be able to judge the extent of the spiritual undernourishment if we look at all these movements from another angle: not as errors but rather as attempts to find healing. I use this comparison: For a long time medical men combated fever ...

Paul Tournier

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 Christianit...

Paul Tournier

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

Paul Tournier

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

Paul Tournier

Listen to all the conversations of our world, between nations as well as between individuals. They are, for the most part, dialogues of the deaf.

Paul Tournier

The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the v...

Paul Tournier

Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.

Paul Tournier

Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injusti...

Paul Tournier

Recounting of a life story, a mind thinking aloud leads one inevitably to the consideration of problems which are no longer psychological but spiritual.

Paul Tournier

Let us not seek to bring religion to others, but let us endeavor to live it ourselves.

Paul Tournier

Author Bio

  • NamePaul Tournier
  • DescriptionSwiss physician and author who had acquired a worldwide audience for his work in pastoral counseling
  • BornMay 12, 1898
  • DiedOctober 7, 1986
  • CountrySwitzerland
  • ProfessionPhysician; Writer; Internist