Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.
Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.
It is necessary to fall in love... if only to provide an alibi for all the random despair you are going to feel anyway.
The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.
The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.
Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.
There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.
Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.
Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.
Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.
The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.
The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.
Charm is a way of getting the answer 'Yes' without asking a clear question.
To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.
No matter what cause one defends, it will suffer permanent disgrace if one resorts to blind attacks on crowds of innocent people.
Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.
Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.