How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.

He who is different from me does not impoverish me - he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves - in Man... For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass.

No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.

Demagoguery enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity.

Language is the source of misunderstandings.

If I were to command a general to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not obey, that would not be the general's fault. It would be mine.

You become responsible for a long time for what you've tamed.