The greatness of man lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition.

What gives value to travel is fear. It is a fact that, at a certain moment, when we are so far from our own country, we are seized by a vague fear and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits. I look upon it more as an occasion for testing.

That's the way man is, cher monsieur. He has two faces: he can't love without self-love.

To live is in itself a value judgment. To breathe is to judge.

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

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.

In fact, other people create for lack of power. I, on the other hand, do not need a work: I live.