I know of only one duty, and that is to love.
Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.
No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.
Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.
Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.
We call first truths those we discover after all the others.
Violence is both unavoidable and unjustifiable.
Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.
Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.
Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.
To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one's landlady.
Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
Charm is a way of getting the answer 'Yes' without asking a clear question.
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 is. And, above all, accept these things.
Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.
Martyrs, my friend, have to choose between being forgotten, mocked or used. As for being understood - never.
The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
There is no love of life without despair of life.
Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion.
To abandon oneself to principles is really to die - and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.
You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?
At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.
Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.
Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.
There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.
In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.
It is normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all.
Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.
As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.
How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.
Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.
It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.