It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste.

Contemplating an object fixedly with the mind, asking myself, 'What is it?' without thinking of any other object or relating it to anything else for hours on end.

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

Patriotism is idolatry of the self.

Joy is being fully aware of reality.

War, which perpetuates itself under the form of preparation for war, has once and for all given the State an important role in production.

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.