She was thinking of him. Doubled up, small as a child, she gazed intently into the distance, at the man who was not there. She bowed to this image li… - Henri Barbusse

There are official proclamations, full of the notion of liberty and rights, which would be beautiful if they said truly what they say. But they who compose them do not attach their full meaning to the words. What they recite they are not capable of wanting, nor even of understanding. The one indisputable sign of progress in ideas to-day is that there are things which they dare no longer leave publicly unsaid, and that's all. There are not all the political parties that there seem to be. They swarm, certainly, as numerous as the cases of short sight; but there are only two — the democrats and the conservatives. Every political deed ends fatally either in one or the other, and all their leaders have always a tendency to act in the direction of reaction.

Truth is simple. They who say that truth is complicated deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them.

...patriotism has become a narrow offensive sentiment which as long as it lives will maintain war and exhaust the world