If the flower were not attached to its stem, it would flee at the approach of man, like the insect or the bird; for the attribute of man on the earth, at least as long as he does not better understand his role, is to worry and frighten what he is not interested in taming for utilitarian purposes. Man is skillful in mistreating everything he can use

Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.

A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.

What eludes logic is the most precious element in us, and one can draw nothing from a syllogism that the mind has not put there in advance.

Pay attention only to the form; emotion will come spontaneously to inhabit it. A perfect dwelling always finds an inhabitant. The artist's business is to build the dwelling; as for the inhabitant, it is up to the reader to provide him.

Through fear of resembling one another, through horror of having to submit, through uncertainty as well, through skepticism and complexity, there is a multitude of individual little beliefs for the triumph of strange little individuals.

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious.