Modern life is given over to immoderation. Immoderation invades everything: actions and thought, public and private life.

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.

To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.

There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.

A man whose mind feels that it is captive would prefer to blind himself to the fact. But if he hates falsehood, he will not do so; and in that case he will have to suffer a lot. He will beat his head against the wall until he faints. He will come to again

One does not play Bach without having done scales. But neither does one play a scale merely for the sake of the scale.

What is surprising is not that oppression should make its appearance only after higher forms of economy have been reached, but that it should always accompany them.