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.

Contradiction is the lever of transcendence.

Why is it that reality, when set down untransposed in a book, sounds false?

If we concentrate our attention on trying to solve a problem of geometry, and if at the end of an hour we are no nearer to doing so than at the beginning, we have nevertheless been making progress each minute of that hour in another more mysterious dimension. Without knowing or feeling it, this apparent barren affort has brought more light into the soul.

Today it is not nearly enough to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent.

There is no greater joy for me than looking at the sky on a clear night with an attention so concentrated that all my other thoughts disappear; then one can think that the stars enter into one's soul.

The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.