There is no doubt; even a rejection can be the shadow of a caress”.

Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.

The essence of man is, discontent, divine discontent; a sort of love without a beloved, the ache we feel in a member we no longer have.

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

Triumph cannot help being cruel.

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.

What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men, but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones.