An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.
To know oneself, one should assert oneself.
Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.
Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.
Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.
Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.
It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.
How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.
The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?
He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.
It's a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.
All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.
You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.
To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one's landlady.
Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.
A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.
We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.
Don't walk behind me I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
I know of only one duty, and that is to love.
We turn toward God only to obtain the impossible.
To abandon oneself to principles is really to die - and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.
We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves.
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
The society based on production is only productive, not creative.
Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.
Blessed are the hearts that can bend they shall never be broken.
As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.
To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.
Without freedom, no art art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.
Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.
The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.
Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.
Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.
It is normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all.
Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.