There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man.

The first progressive step for a mind overwhelmed by the strangeness of things is to realize that this feeling of strangeness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe.

Men who have greatness within them don't go in for politics.

Poor and free rather than rich and enslaved. Of course, men want to be both rich and free, and this is what leads them at times to be poor and enslaved.

I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.

All that remains is a fate whose outcome alone is fatal. Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty. A world remains of which man is the sole master. What bound him was the illusion of another world.

Our reason has driven all away. Alone at last, we end up ruling over a desert.