Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself — and thus make yourself
indispensable.
Sin is whatever obscures the soul.
There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.
The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.
At times it seems to me that I am living my life backwards, and that at the approach of old age my real youth will begin. My soul was born covered with wrinkles—wrinkles my ancestors and parents most assiduously put there and that I had the greatest trouble removing.
True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.
It seems to me that had I not known Dostoevsky or Nietzsche or Freud or X or Z, I should have thought just as I did, and that I found in them rather an authorization than an awakening. Above all, they taught me to cease doubting, to cease fearing my thoughts, and to let those thoughts lead me to those lands that were not uninhabitable because after all I found them already there.
No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.