Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.

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.

After awhile you could get used to anything.

A sub-clerk in the post-office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them.

As soon as one does not kill oneself, one must keep silent about life.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

You know, a man always judges himself by the balance he can strike between the needs of his body and the demands of his mind. You're judging yourself now, Mersaut, and you don't like the sentence.