“There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.”

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one’s own inner self.

The world is but a perpetual see-saw.

It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.

The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One.

No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.

I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.

Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.

Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.

It became like a symbolic thing, to be “an artist.” After Duchamp, I realized that being an artist is more about a lifestyle and attitude than producing some product.

Growing up, my family was an enemy of the state. I have experienced more disappointment than joy, much more sad stories or desperate conditions.

This world should be much more open and should be much more free, so the young people would have the chance to exercise the quality of their lives.

The whole attitude of society has become much more open and realistic. They realize that the only way to make a more democratic and free society is to let different opinions come out.

Some media in the world are more critical towards what’s happening than others.

You’ll have more love than you know what to do with. Whatever you are inside, you receive a thousandfold on the outside.