There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.

All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

In the world there is, parallel to the force of death and constraint, an enormous force of persuasion that is called culture.

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

What more ghastly image can be called up than that of a man betrayed by his body who, simply because he did not die in time, lives out the comedy while awaiting the end, face to face with that God he does not adore, serving him as he served life, kneeling before a void and arms outstretched toward a heaven without eloquence that he knows to be also without depth?

I know myself too well to believe in pure virtue.

...the play of the toughest and most lucid mind are at the same time both lavished andsquandered.