I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity.

The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.

The only way of enduring one disaster after the next is to love the very idea of disaster: if we succeed, there are no further surprises, we are superior to whatever occurs, we are invincible victims.

Mind, even more deadly to empires than to individuals, erodes them, compromises their solidity.

The wise man, the sage, is hostile to the new. Disabused, he abdicates: that is his form of protest.

In a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.

I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity.