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

Only the sea, murmurous behind the dingy checkerboard of houses, told of the unrest, the precariousness, of all things in this world.

So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories.

An achievement is a bondage. It obliges one to a higher achievement.

I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.

One might think, that a period which, within fifty years, uproots, enslaves or kills seventy million human beings, should only, and forthwith, be condemned. But also its guilt must be understood.

The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.