“When the wound/ No longer hurts/ The scar does.”

Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must also change. Nothing comes from nothing; the new comes from the old, but that is why it is new.

Art and science work in quite different ways: agreed. But, bad as it may sound, I have to admit that I cannot get along as an artist without the use of one or two sciences. …

Something ignoble, loathsome, undignified attends all associations between people and has been transferred to all objects, dwelling, tools, even the landscape itself.

It isn’t important to come out on top, what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.

Science knows only one commandment – contribute to science.

The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.

The righteous one has no sense of humor.

There must always be some who are brighter and some who are stupider, the latter make up for it by being better workers.

You can’t write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen.

What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?

There are times when you have to choose between being human and having good taste.

He who speaks of enemies , himself is the enemy.

When the praying does no good, insurance does help.

For once you must try not to shirk the facts: mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.

When you name yourself, you always name another.

For time flows on, and if it did not, it would be a bad prospect for those who do not sit at golden tables.

Art… does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.

I shall show that the place does not honor the man, but the man the place.

Every ruler must remember three things. Firstly, that he rules man; secondly, that he rules according to law, and thirdly, that he does not rule for ever.

If the present civilisation does not acquire some stable moral fondations (“bases morales stables”, Fr.), its existence will hardly be more assured than that of the civilisations that have preceeded it, and which have fallen (or collapse, or failed).

To be complex does not mean to be fragmented.

One attacks those who possess things that one does not possess. The attack is all the more savage because the one who attacks is destitute and the one who is attacked is well provided.

I don’t admire how much a person has, I admire what a person does with what they have and I think that defines you most.

God does not flunk any of His children. He just re-enrolls them.