It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.

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

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.

With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.

In this world we live in a mixture of time and eternity. Hell would be pure time.

I only read what I am hungry for at the moment when I have an appetite for it, and then I do not read, I eat.

To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.