Everything changes but the avant-garde.

Man cannot bear his own portrait. The image of his limits and his own determinacy exasperates him, drives him mad.

History is the most dangerous product which the chemistry of the mind has concocted. Its properties are well known. It produces dreams and drunkenness. It fills people with false memories, exaggerates their reactions, exacerbates old grievances, torments them in their repose, and encourages either a delirium of grandeur or a delusion of persecution. It makes whole nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable and vainglorious.

Order always weighs on the individual. Disorder makes him wish for the police or for death. These are two extreme circumstances in which human nature is not at ease.

Peace is a virtual, mute, sustained victory of potential powers against probable greeds

The folly of mistaking oneself for an oracle is built right into us.

Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to.