It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence.

I cling like a miser to the freedom that disappears as soon as there is an excess of things.

History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.

I love life - that’s my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.

Indeed, men never know how to love. nothing satisfies them. All they know is to dream, to imagine new duties, to look for new countries and new homes. While we women, we know that we must hasten to love, to share the same bed, hold hands, and fear absence. When we women love, we dream of nothing.

Purely historical thought is therefore nihilistic: it wholeheartedly accepts the evil of history and in this way is opposed to rebellion.

But all the long speeches, all the interminable days and hours that people had spent talking about my soul, had left me with the impression of a colorless swirling river that was making me dizzy.