A grain of sand leads to the fall of a mountain when the moment has come for the mountain to fall.

Forgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the creation of a nation.

The epic disappeared along with the age of personal heroism; there can be no epic with artillery.

I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life.

When people complain of life, it is almost always because they have asked impossible things of it.

He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men; he is marked by a sign.

It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to exist, caused it to crumble. One generation of man at the most was the limit of its endurance. The faith of the first Christian generation is intelligible, but the faith of the second generation is no longer so. After the death of John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of the group which had seen the master, the word of Jesus was convicted of falsehood.