One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

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

The society of merchants can be defined as a society in which things disappear in favor of signs. When a ruling class measures its fortunes, not by the acre of land or the ingot of gold, but by the number of figures corresponding ideally to a certain number of exchange operations, it thereby condemns itself to setting a certain kind of humbug at the center of its experience and its universe. A society founded on signs is, in its essence, an artificial society in which man's carnal truth is handled as something artificial.

The best are led to make greater demands upon themselves. As for those who succumb, they did not deserve to survive.

In the past, the poverty they shared had a certain sweetness about it. When the end of the day came and they would eat their dinner in silence with the oil lamp between them, there was a secret joy in such simplicity, such retrenchment.

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.