To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat.

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.

I do not deny that there may be other well-founded causes for the hatred which various classes feel toward politicians, but the main one seems to me that politicians are symbols of the fact that every class must take every other class into account.

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

Poetry is adolescence fermented, and thus preserved.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. This is the sport, the luxury, special to the intellectual man.

To write well consists of continuously making small erosions, wearing away grammar in its established form, current norms of language. It is an act of permanent rebellion and subversion against social environs.