To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.

In reality nothing is so beautiful as the good, nothing is so monotonous and boring as evil.

The right to kill: supposing the life of X ... were linked with our own so that the two deaths had to be simultaneous, should we still wish him to die? If with our whole body and soul we desire life and if nevertheless without lying, we can reply 'yes'> then we have the right to kill.

It is only from the light which streams constantly from heaven that a tree can derive the energy to strike its roots deep into the soil. The tree is in fact rooted in the sky.

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.

When literature becomes deliberately indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to excellence.

The supernatural virtue of justice consists of behaving exactly as though there were equality when one is the stronger in an unequal relationship.