The Mass is very long and tiresome unless one loves God.

It is a mathematical fact that if a line be not perfectly directed towards a point, it will actually go further away from it as it comes nearer to it.

You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.

All government is an ugly necessity.

It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.

To desire money is much nobler than to desire success. Desiring money may mean desiring to return to your country, or marry the woman you love, or ransom your father from brigands. But desiring success must mean that you take an abstract pleasure in the unbrotherly act of distancing and disgracing other men.

A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.