Whatever the flows of our modern times are the idea is that you can create something new out of nothing.

You construct your happiness as you construct a house and you have to work on it. It is a daily job.

An overblown conscience is an empty conscience.

Today, luxury resides in everything that is becoming rare: communion with nature, silence, meditation, slowness rediscovered, the pleasure of living out of step with others, studious idleness, the enjoyment of the major works of the mind–these are all privileges that cannot be bought because they are literally priceless.

We should distinguish between responsibility and guilt. Guilt only touches the ones who committed the crimes but the son of a criminal is not a criminal himself.

Whatever the flows of our modern times are the idea is that you can create something new out of nothing.

You are not doomed to reproduce what your ancestors have done. The son will not be like his father, the daughter will not be like her mother. She can invent something new. I think that is the best message of modernity.