We only possess what we renounce; what we do not renounce escapes from us.

The contradictions the mind comes up against, these are the only realities, the criterion of the real. There is no contradiction in what is imaginary. Contradiction is the test of necessity.

The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.

It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world--and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish--she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France.

Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.

Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive

Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence.