The ability to be alone is the ability to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it’s not. It is an existential truth: only those who can be alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another human being—without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other.

The structure of the international system forces states to behave in certain ways, regardless of their internal characteristics.

The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.