If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.

I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition.

The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.