In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.

All the tragedies which we can imagine return in the end to the one and only tragedy: the passage of time.

There are only two sorts of greatness: true greatness, which is of a spiritual order, and the old, old lie of world conquest. Conquest is an ersatz greatness.

In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.

The whole evolution of present-day society tends to develop the various forms of bureaucratic oppression and to give them a sort of autonomy in regard to capitalism as such.

The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.