There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it.

The liberty of the individual is the greatest thing of all, it is on this and this alone that the true will of the people can develop.

It seems to me that you are solving a problem which goes beyond the limits of physiology in too simple a way. Physiology has realized its problem with fortitude, breaking man down into endless actions and counteractions and reducing him to a crossing, a vortex of reflex acts. Let it now permit sociology to restore him as a whole. Sociology will wrest man from the anatomical theatre and return him to history.

Strong drink stupefies a man and makes it possible for him to forget; it gives him an artificial cheeriness, an artificial excitement; and the pleasure of this state is increased by the low level of civilization and the narrow empty life to which these men are confined.

History is the autobiography of a madman.

Compassionate love may be strong. It sobs, it burns, then it wipes away its tears – and it does nothing.

Human development is a form of chronological unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labors of their predecessors without paying the same price.