Every kind of reward constitutes a degradation of energy.

Patriotism is idolatry of the self.

I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.

Love: To feel with one's whole self the existence of another being.

Charity. To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does.

The payment of debts is necessary for social order. The non-payment is quite equally necessary for social order. For centuries humanity has oscillated, serenely unaware, between these two contradictory necessities.

I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.