Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable.

So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.

I have no wish to take life, not even human life

The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from work.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

All human relationships must be purchased with money.

Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.