In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one's landlady.

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasio

Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right...

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

After all, every murderer when he kills runs the risk of the most dreadful of deaths, whereas those who kill him risk nothing except promotion.

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.

The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude.