The novel is born of disillusionment; the poem, of despair.
There are no good or bad habits. All habits are, by definition, bad.
Happiness is always a coincidence.
A piece of advice always contains an implicit threat, just as a threat always contains an implicit piece of advice.
Life is a dangerous adventure, says the American, and he is half right: life is dangerous, but it’s not an adventure.
The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer...
Man is a question; woman is an answer. The mistake women make today is to offer themselves as answers before being questioned.
The only time a man thinks is when he’s alone.
Theology is the logic of the Devil.
A German immersed in any civilization different from his own loses a weight equivalent in volume to the amount of intelligence he displaces.
When there is nothing to fear is the time to begin fearing everything.
Try not to turn your life into a race, least of all an obstacle race.
True art tries not to attract attention in order to be noticed.
The most original sin is not the thinker’s but the poet’s.
The first condition for making music is not to make a noise.
The man who gets drunk in peacetime is a coward. The man who gets drunk in wartime goes on being a coward.
Effort and result are never simultaneous. In art, only the result counts.
Do we have to talk in order to agree or agree in order to talk?
An ignorance of Marx is as frequent among Marxists as an ignorance of Christ is among Catholics.
A woman who does not become the slave of just one man becomes the slave of all men.
A reformer knows neither how to do nor to undo.