If those whom we begin to love could know us as we were before meeting them they could perceive what they have made of us.

Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history.

In default of inexhaustible happiness, eternal suffering would at least give us a destiny. But we do not even have that consolation, and our worst agonies come to an end one day.

Yes, and when the love of life disappears, no meaning can console us.

A lot of jobs don't allow you to be who you are. There is dignity in work only when it is work freely accepted.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.

Holland is a dream, Monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke-smokier by day, more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funereal swans constantly drifting throughout the whole country, around the seas, along the canals.