Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be encountered. Proust in Venice, Matisse's birdcages overlooking the flower market at Nice, Gide on the seventeenth-century quais of Toulon, Lorca in Granada, Picasso by Saint-Germain-des-Prés: there lies civilization and for me it can exist only under those liberal regimes in which the Present is alive and therefore capable of assimilating the Past.

Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.

Youth is a period of missed opportunities.

The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.

No taste is so acquired as that for someone else's quality of mind.