The kingdom of heaven will, in fact, appear on earth, but it will be ruled over by men a mere handful to begin with, who will be the Cassars, because they were the first to understand and later, with time, by all men.
Some cry: ‘Love me!!’ Others: ‘Don’t love me!!’ But a certain genus, the worst and most unhappy, cries: ‘Don’t love me and be faithful to me!!’
It is natural to give a clear view of the world after accepting the idea that it must be clear.
The end of their passion consists of loving uselessly at the moment when it is pointless.
The contradiction is this: man rejects the world as it is, without accepting the necessity of escaping it. In fact, men cling to the world and by far the majority do not want to abandon it.
How many crimes are permitted simply because their authors could not endure being wrong.
Thinking of the future, establishing aims for oneself, having preferences-all this presupposes a belief in freedom, even if one occasionally ascertains that one doesn’t feel it.
There are some individuals who have too strong a craving, a will, and a nostalgia for happiness ever to reach it. They always retain a bitter and passionate aftertaste, and that’s the best they can hope for.
There can be no question of masking the evidence, of suppressing the absurd by denying one of the terms of its equation. It is essential to know whether one can live with it or whether, on the other hand, logic commands one to die of it.
One cannot be a part-time nihilist.
I have not stopped loving that which is sacred in this world.
At times I feel myself overtaken by an immense tenderness for these people around me who live in the same century.
We do not know how to eliminate evil, but we do know how to feed some of the hungry and heal some of the infirmed.
Having money is a way of being free of money.
Yes, there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune. But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it.
The ancients, even though they believed in destiny, believed primarily in nature, in which they participated wholeheartedly. To rebel against nature amounted to rebelling against oneself. It was butting one’s head against a wall.
There is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom insight and life of each person who has known and loved it.
Travel breaks down a kind of inner structure we have. Stripped of our props, deprived of our masks, we are completely on the surface of ourselves.
Their guilt made me eloquent because I was not its victim.
There is no shame in preferring happiness.