Once you get a tyranny, you don't easily get rid of it. Much better to remember about eternal vigilance.

I see mysteries and complications wherever I look, and I have never met a steadily logical person.

Why do people talk of the horrors of old age? It's great. I feel like a fine old car with the parts gradually wearing out, but I'm not complaining,... Those who find growing old terrible are people who haven't done what they wanted with their lives.

Freedom' is the most expensive possession there is; it has to be paid for with loneliness.

People often say, with pride, 'I'm not interested in politics.' They might as well say, 'I'm not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future or any future.' ... If we mean to keep any control over our world and lives, we must be interested in politics.

[On Paris:] I do not know any city so beautiful and you can be unhappy there and notice your unhappiness less, having the city to look at.

A broken heart is such a shabby thing, like poverty and failure and the incurable diseases which are also deforming. I hate it and am ashamed of it, and I must somehow repair this heart and put it back into its normal condition, as a tough somewhat scarred but operating organ.