Life is an operation which is done in a forward direction. One lives toward the future, because to live consists inexorably in doing, in each individual life making itself.

These are the only genuine ideas, the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.

The masses think that is is easy to flee from reality, when it is the most difficult thing in the world.

The past will not tell us what we ought to do, but... what we ought to avoid.

Better beware of notions like genius and inspiration; they are a sort of magic wand and should be used sparingly by anybody who wants to see things clearly.

The choice of a point of view is the initial act of a culture.

Commonplaces are the tramways of intellectual transportation.