This is the gravest danger that today threatens civilization: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State, that is to say, of spontaneous historical action, which in the long run sustains, nourishes, and impels human destinies.

"Natural" man is always there, under the changeable historical man. We call him and he comes-a little sleepy, benumbed, without his lost form of instinctive hunter, but, after all, still alive. Natural man is first prehistoric man-the hunter.

The most radical division that it is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: Those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of themselves, but for whom to live is to be every moment what they already are, without imposing on themselves any effort towards perfection, mere buoys that float on the waves.

Civilization is nothing more than the effort to reduce the use of force to the last resort.

And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself to be on firm ground.

There are people who so arrange their lives that they feed themselves only on side dishes.

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