A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is launched there.

To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as God's hand, his brain as God's brain, his purpose as God's purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.

A man who has no office to go, to I don't care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.

Leisure may be defined as free activity, labor as compulsory activity. Leisure does what it likes, labor does what it must, the compulsion being that of Nature, which in these latitudes leaves men no choice between labor and starvation.

I never climbed any ladder: I have achieved eminence by sheer gravitation.

Civilized society is one huge bourgeoisie: no nobleman dares now shock his greengrocer.

I try to follow his example, not to imitate him.