Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

May heaven protect us, cher monsieur, from being set on a pedestal by our friends!!!

It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.

We all have a weakness for beauty.

I spent a long time looking at faces, drinking in smiles. Am I happy or unhappy? It’s not a very important question. I live with such frenzied intensity. Things and people are waiting for me, and doubtless I am waiting for them and desiring them with all my strength and sadness. But, here, I earn the right to be alive by silence and by secrecy. The miracle of not having to talk about oneself.

Poor and free rather than rich and enslaved. Of course, men want to be both rich and free, and this is what leads them at times to be poor and enslaved.