In the long run one gets used to anything.

Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery...

Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely...

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

Je puis nier une chose sans me croire obligé de la salir ou de retirer aux autres le droit d’y croire.

He marveled at the strange blindness by which men, though they are so alert to what changes in themselves, impose on their friends an image chosen for them once and for all. He was being...

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

Ce que je sais de la morale, c’est au football que je le dois.(I know of morality, it is football that I owe.)

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he...

There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be...

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Remembrance of things past is just for the rich. For the poor it only marks the faint traces on the path to death.

It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is...

On veut gagner de l’argent pour vivre heureux et tout l’effort et le meilleur d’une vie se concentrent pour le gain de cet argent. le bonheur est oublié, le moyen pris pour la fin.

…he was conscious of the disastrous fact that love and desire must be expressed in the same way…

Humans are creatures, who spent their lifes trying to convince themselves, that their existence is not absurd

On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible...

Si je me demande à quoi juger que telle question est plus pressante que telle autre, je réponds que c’est aux actions qu’elles engage.

When a man has learned how to remain alone with his suffering, how to overcome his longing to flee, then he has little left to learn.

Mas, no que se refere a este tribunal, a virtude negativa da toler ncia deve transformar-se na virtude menos fácil, mas mais elevada, da justiça. Sobretudo, quando o vazio de um coração, assim como o...

If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Il n’y a qu’une seule liberté, se mettre en règle avec la mort. Après quoi, tout est possible. Je ne puis te forcer à croire en Dieu. Croire en Dieu, c’est accepter la mort. Quand...

To hold two ideas that contradict each other is to flirt with absurdity, and humans are creatures who spend their lives trying to convince themselves that their existence is not absurd.

Perhaps the easiest way of making a town’s acquaintance is to ascertain how the people in it work, how they love, and how they die.

If Aliosha had come to the conclusion that neither God nor immortality existed, he would immediately have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not only a question of the working classes; it...

I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.

Our purpose is to find out whether innocence, the moment it becomes involved in an action, can avoid committing murder.

Une manière commode de faire la connaissance d’une ville est de chercher comment on y travaille, comment on y aime et comment on y meurt.

Viene sempre il momento in cui bisogna scegliere fra la contemplazione e l’azione. Ciò si chiama diventare un uomo.

In fact, it comes to this: nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day,...

Your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happy...

The greatness of man lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition.

The only deep emotion I occasionally felt in these affairs was gratitude, when all was going well and I was left, not only peace, but freedom to come and go–never kinder and gayer with one...

Au milieu de l’hiver, j’apprenais enfin qu’il y avait en moi un été invincible.

I grant we should add a third category: that of the true healers. But it is a fact one doesn’t come across many of them, and anyhow it must be a hard vocation. That’s why...

Ot minderimle kerevet tahtası arasında sanki kumaşa yapışmış nerdeyse saydamlaşmış bir gazete parçası buldum. Geçmiş bir polis olayını anlatıyordu. Baş tarafı yoktu. Ama, olay herhalde Çekoslovakya’da geçmiş olmalıydı. Adamın biri para kazanmak için bir Çek...

On moonlight nights the long, straight street and dirty white walls, nowhere darkened by the shadow of a tree, their peace untroubled by footsteps or a dog’s bark, glimmered in the pale recession. The silent...

L’automne est un deuxième ressort où chaque feuille est une fleur.

After awhile you could get used to anything.

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. “Can they be brought...

And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten—since, in either case, other men and women will continue living,...

But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one...

He was one of those rare people, rare in our town as elsewhere, who have the courage of their good feelings. What little he told of his personal life vouched for acts of kindness and...

Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only...

You see, I’ve heard of a man whose friend had been imprisoned and who slept on the floor of his room every night in order not to enjoy a comfort of which his friend had...

It is a matter of living in that state of the absurd I know on what it is founded, this mind and this world straining against each other without being able to embrace each other....

You see, Mersualt, all the misery and cruelty of our civilisation can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history.