The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness.

Every creation is, at its root, the struggle between potential form and imitated form.

Since 1789 history has had a new perspective, revolution being a successful revolt, and revolt a revolution that has failed.

The thrill of creation which we experience which we experience when we see a masterpiece is not unlike the feeling of the artist who created it; such a work is a fragment of the world which he has annexed and which belongs to him alone.

The basic problem is that our civilization, which is a civilization of machines, can teach man everything except how to be a man.

One can fool life for a long time, but in the end it always makes us what we were intended to be.

The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness.