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

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.

Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.

Fire destroys that which feeds it.

There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.

The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either