One should use praise to recognize what one is not.

Of all the words in all languages I know, the greatest concentration is in the English word I.

Almost Kien was tempted to believe in happiness, that contemptible life-goal of illiterates. If it came of itself, without being hunted for, if you did not hold it fast by force and treated it with a certain condescension, it was permissible to endure its presence for a few days

People's fates are simplified by their names.

It is important what a man still plans at the end. It shows the measure of injustice in his death.

When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about

It is only in a crowd that man can become free of this fear of being touched. That is the only situation in which the fear changes into its opposite… The reversal of fear of being touched belongs to the nature of crowds. The feeling of relief is most striking where the density of the crowd is greatest