What does the truth matter? Haven't we mothers all given our sons a taste for lies, lies which from the cradle upwards lull them, reassure them, send them to sleep: lies as soft and warm as a breast!

The wish to pray is a prayer in itself.

It is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man.

The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.

What does the truth matter? Haven't we mothers all given our sons a taste for lies, lies which from the cradle upwards lull them, reassure them, send them to sleep: lies as soft and warm as a breast!

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.