You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

For the first time since her return, she felt pain, a violent pain, but it made her feel alive, because it was worth feeling.

I say that man is entitled to his own happiness and that he must achieve it himself. But that he cannot demand that others give up their lives to make him happy.

The great creators-the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors-stood alone against the men of their time.

You'd let the whole world perish rather than soil that immaculate self of yours with a single spot of which you'd have to be ashamed.

It is too early to feel fear of the future when one is under 30, and too late after that. What I mean is that one must never allow fear to become one's permanent sense of life. The important thing is to prepare yourself intellectually to deal with whatever circumstances you may encounter, which requires that you define your values fully, clearly and rationally -- and never betray them.

When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed