Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress.

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.

The color of truth is gray.

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.

It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon.

There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.

Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.

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.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.

In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime.

It is good to follow one’s own bent, so long as it leads upward.

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say – because they were too obvious.

The most decisive actions of life are most often unconsidered actions.

The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.

Art begins with resistance – at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.

Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.

“Therefore” is a word the poet must not know.

Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow’s joy is possible only if today’s makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves – in finding themselves.

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.

To what a degree the same past can leave different marks – and especially admit of different interpretations.

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.

Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.

Not everyone can be an orphan.

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.

What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.

Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.

To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself-and thus make yourself indispensable.

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.