It is what we are forced to do that forms our character, not what we do of our own free will.

Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.

When you aren't sincere you need to pretend, and by pretending you end up believing yourself; that's the basic principle of every faith.

And we all know love is a glass which makes even a monster appear fascinating.

This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.

Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.

An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.