We don't have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

Gilbert Jonas, painter, believed in his star.... His own faith was not, however, without its virtues because it consisted in admitting, in some obscure way, that he would obtain many things without deserving them.

The most knowledgeable person in one domain may be the most ignorant in another.

From Paul to Stalin, the popes who have chosen Caesar have prepared the way for Caesars who quickly learn to despise popes.

At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise . . . that denseness and that strangeness of the world is absurd.

If one could only say just once: 'this is clear', all would be saved