“We are very fragile in front of the future. Accidents and sicknesses is the reality. We are born in extreme weakness and our life will end in extreme weakness. So this, people don't want to hold on to that. They want to prove something. They want security. They want to have big bank accounts and all that sort of stuff. But then also, hold lots of fears within us.”

Source: I Hunt Killers

“Malraux and the Statues at Bamberg”, p. 191
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 4 (p. 37)

Context: We hope for lives whose story leaves us looking admirable; we like our weaknesses to be hidden and deniable... We want to enjoy our lives, and we want to enjoy them with a good conscience... Ethics is disturbing. We are often vaguely uncomfortable when we think of such things as exploitation of the world's resources, or the way our comforts are provided by the miserable labour conditions of the third world... Racists and sexists, like antebellum slave owners in America, always have to tell themselves a story that justifies their system.

Simon Blackburn, Being Good (2001)

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

S'il est vrai que l'on soit pauvre par toutes les choses que l'on désire, l'ambitieux et l'avare languissent dans une extrême pauvreté.
Aphorism 49
Les Caractères (1688), Des biens de fortune

With Open Hands (1972)

Quoted in "The 900 Days: The Siege Of Leningrad" - Page 182 - by Harrison E. Salisbury - History - 2003