People don’t love each other at our age, Marthe – they please each other, that’s all. Later on, when you’re old and impotent, you can love someone. At our age, you just think you do. That’s all it is.
Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.
I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.
How hard, how bitter it is to become a man!
Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.
To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.
The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.
What the world requires of the Christians is that they should continue to be Christians.
In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.
A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.
Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.
A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.
Charm is a way of getting the answer ‘Yes’ without asking a clear question.
Don’t wait for the last judgment – it takes place every day.
Heroism is accessible. Happiness is more difficult.
At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.
The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.
The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.
It’s a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.