Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.

Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real.

Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

To be with God is really to be involved in some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

People said that he was very nice, but I confess that his utter grotesqueness made me uneasy; perhaps in the same way that the sight of monkeys eating their own excrement turns some people’s stomachs. They might not mind so much if monkeys did not- so grotesquely- resemble human beings.

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.