The sight or sound of perfect things causes a certain suffering..

German civility, which often seems stiff to us, shows an attentive and touching respect for the person that I often prefer to our offhandedness..

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 on….

Unkindness almost always stands for the displeasure that one has in oneself..

I can easily do without people (there are days when I could easily do without myself), and ... in the country of books where I dwell, the dead can co….

In my opinion what distinguishes the Bible from the other books is its sense of time. Its first concern is to establish a calendar. Then it traces a ….

Our present-day artists do not transform, they deform. That gives pleasure to nobody. It changes everything, therefore it changes nothing..

I am not sure that Christ would have been very satisfied to foresee that He would be looked upon principally as a redeemer and nailed forever upon th….

Gaiety is forgetfulness of the self, melancholy is memory of the self: in that state the soul feels all the power of its roots, nothing distracts it ….

For the last six or seven years the circus has no longer been in fashion. That is a pity. One should go to the circus, beyond any question of fashion….

Abstract art: a construction site for high fashion, for advertising, for furniture..

It matters less to venerate things than to live with them on terms of good friendship..