The more a man lives, the more a man creates, the more a man loves and loses those whom he loves, the more does he escape from death. With every new blow that we have to bear, with every new work that we round and finish, we escape from ourselves, we escape into the work we have created, the soul we have loved, the soul that has left us.

As a result of all his education, from everything he hears and sees around him, the child absorbs such a lot of lies and foolish nonsense, mixed in with essential truths, that the first duty of the adolescent who wants to be a healthy man is to disgorge it all.

History furnishes to politics all the arguments that it needs, for the chosen cause.

Any man who is really a man must learn to be alone in the midst of others, to think alone for others, and, if necessary, against others.

Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.

Take possession of the air, submit the elements, penetrate the last redoubts of nature, make space retreat, make death retreat.

If a man is to shed the light of the sun upon other men, he must first of all have it within himself.