In the course of history, all empires have been created with premeditation, by an effort often sustained over several generations. Every power has been Roman to a degree. The United States is the first nation to become the most powerful in the world without having sought to be so. Its exceptional energy and organization have never been oriented toward conquest.

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

Every great masterpiece is a purification of the world.

The most important thing in life is to see to it that you are never beaten.

A political leader is necessarily an imposter since he believes in solving life's problems without asking its question.

Youth is a religion from which one always ends up being converted.

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.