Our true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were my books.

Morals are a matter of private agreement; decency is of public concern.

This city belongs to ghosts, to murderers, to sleepwalkers. Where are you, in what bed, in what dream?

A being afire with life cannot foresee death; in fact, by each of his deeds he denies that death exists.

Ancient and oriental civilizations were more sensitive than we are to the cycles of things; to the succession of generations, both divine and human; and to change within stasis. Western man is virtually alone in wanting to make his God into a fortress and personal immortality into a bulwark against time.

I have come to think that great men are characterized precisely by the extreme position which they take, and that their heroism consists in holding to that extremity throughout their lives.

Of all our games, love's play is the only one which threatens to unsettle the soul.