In the evenings the art of building gave way to that of music, which is architecture, too, though invisible.

The memory of most men is an abandoned cemetery where lie, unsung and unhonored, the dead whom they have ceased to cherish. Any lasting grief is reproof to their neglect.

The founding of libraries was like constructing more public granaries, amassing reserves against a spiritual winter which by certain signs, in spite of myself, I see ahead.

The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to appreciate bodily motions.

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

For my part I have sought liberty more than power, and power only because it can lead to freedom. What interested me was not a philosophy of the free man (all who try that have proved tiresome), but a technique: I hoped to discover the hinge where our will meets and moves with destiny, and where discipline strengthens, instead of restraining, our nature.

We say: mad with joy. We should say: wise with grief.