I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.

In the end, we would like not to be guilty while at the same time being dispensed of the effort of purifying ourselves. Not enough cynicism and not enough virtue.

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

The truth, as the light, makes blind.

Because there is nothing here than invites us to cherish unhappy lovers. Nothing is more vain than to die for love. What we ought to do is live.

What's natural is the microbe. All the rest-heath, integrity, purity (if you like)-is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention.

The most exhausting effort in my life has been to suppress my own nature in order to make it serve my biggest plans.