Friendship is in the end no more than: " . . . a lie which seeks to make us believe that we are not irremediably alone."

The truth is that every morning war is declared afresh. And the men who wish to continue it are as guilty as the men who began it, more guilty perhaps, for the latter perhaps did not foresee all its horrors.

The thirst for something other than what we have…to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it.

A work should convey its entire meaning by itself, imposing it on the spectator even before he knows what the subject is.

No man is a complete mystery except to himself.

Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries which we long for occupy, at any given moment, a far larger place in our actual life than the country in which we happen to be.

It has been said that beauty is a promise of happiness. Conversely, the possibility of pleasure can be a beginning of beauty.