To lie about a far country is easy

We are accustomed to use our eyes only with the memory of what other people before us have thought about the object we are looking at.

Since governments take the right of death over their people, it is not astonishing if the people should sometimes take the right of death over governments.

One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.

The only certainty is death.

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.

Killing is decreed by law but nature loves eternal youth. Whatever she does, however unconscious and unfeeling the act, she seems to cry out: 'Quick! Quick! Quick!' And the more she destroys, the more she is renewed.