We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves.

A good part of the fame of most celebrated men is due to the shortsightedness of their admirers

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Bad writers are those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones.

To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.