Democracy: a festival of mediocrity.

I have all the defects of other people yet everything they do seems to me inconceivable.

It has been a long time since philosophers have read men's souls. It is not their task, we are told. Perhaps. But we must not be surprised if they no longer matter much to us.

If a man has not, by the time he is thirty, yielded to the fascination of every form of extremism—I don't know whether he is to be admired or scorned, regarded as a saint or a corpse.

The sole means of protecting your solitude is to offend everyone, beginning with those you love.

No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or not, have faith or not, just as it is all the same whether you cry or remain silent.

If we had the courage to confront the doubts we timidly conceive about ourselves, none of us would utter an 'I' without shame.