“Thoughts Are Things.”

“It has been observed that I show hardly any interest in talking about myself. It is hard for me to disentangle my own person from the social processes, the ideas and activities in which it has shared, which matter more than it does and which give it value. I do not think of myself as at all an individualist: rather as a 'personalist', in that I view human personality as a supreme value, only integrated in society and history. The experience and thought of one man have no significance that deserves to last, except in this sense.”

“Je devenais. Métamorphose bien ordinaireà la portée de n'importe qui d'assez naïf pour voir, aimer et écouter. Je changeai à jamais, ayant compris que derrière les choses se cachent des choses, que sous les apparences il y a des profondeurs, que sous la face des signes foisonnent des rayons de sens.”

“S’il s’agissait d’un autre type de relation ou de contrat, on comprendrait immédiatement que l’institution elle-même est en défaut lorsque le pourcentage d’échecs approcherait des 50%. Mais dans le cas du mariage, les gens s’efforcent d’accepter ce résultat comme inévitable sinon comme normal. L’illusion persiste.”

“Early on, I learnt from the Russian intelligentsia that the only meaning of life lies in conscious participation in the making of history. The more I think of that, the more deeply true it seems to be. It follows that one must range oneself actively against everything that diminishes man, and involve oneself in all struggles which tend to liberate and enlarge him. This categorical imperative is by no way lessened by the fact that such an involvement is inevitably soiled by error: it is a worse error merely to live for oneself, caught within traditions which are soiled by inhumanity.”

“A French essayist has said: 'What is terrible when you seek the truth, is that you find it.' You find it, and then you are no longer free to follow the biases of your personal circle, or to accept fashionable clichés. I immediately discerned within the Russian Revolution the seeds of such serious evils as intolerance and the drive towards the persecution of dissent. These evils originated in an absolute sense of possession of the truth, grafted upon doctrinal rigidity. What followed was contempt for the man who was different, of his arguments and way of life. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest problems which each of us has to solve in the realm of practice is that of accepting the necessity to maintain, in the midst of intransigence which comes from steadfast beliefs, a critical spirit towards these same beliefs and a respect for the belief that differs. In the struggle, it is the problem of combining the greatest practical efficiency with respect for the man in the enemy - in a word, of war without hate.”

“what is terrible when you seek the truth is that you find it..”