“With the exception of professional rationalists, today people despair of true knowledge. If only the significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be he history of its successive regrets and its impotences.”

“If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.”

“There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”

“Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. That's why it's good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion- it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.”

“He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.”

“When one has no character, one HAS to apply a method. Here it did wonders incontrovertibly, and I am living on the site of one of the greatest crimes in human history.”

“If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.”