To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.
The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.
In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.
The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.
As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
All sins are attempts to fill voids.
Humility is attentive patience.
When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.
It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.
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.
We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.
Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.
Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.
Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.
To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.
An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.