If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers.

I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.

I used to advertise my loyalty and I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't eventually betray.

By giving too much importance to fine actions one may end by paying an indirect but powerful tribute to evil, because in so doing one implies that such fine actions are only valuable because they are rare, and that malice or indifference are far more common motives in the actions of men.

I have not stopped loving that which is sacred in this world.

You have so much inside you, and the noblest happiness of all. Don’t just wait for a man to come along. That’s the mistake so many women make. Find your happiness in yourself.

I understood, by dint of digging into my memories, that modesty helped me to shine, humility helped me to triumph and virtue to oppress.