The horror no less than the charm of real life consists precisely in the recurrent actualization of the inconceivable

Dedicated to all those who say: "I don't have time for analytics" or "I don't understand analytics".

Our vanity makes us exaggerate the importance of human life; the individual is nothing; Nature cares only for the species.

In the contexts of religion and politics, words are not regarded as standing, rather inadequately, for things and events; on the contrary things and events are regarded as particular illustrations of words.

It is possible to argue that the really influential book is not that which converts ten millions of casual readers, but rather that which converts the very few who, at any given moment, succeed in seizing power. Marx and Sorel have been influential in the modern world, not so much because they were best-sellers (Sorel in particular was not at all a widely read author), but because among their few readers were two men, called respectively Lenin and Mussolini.

After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.

Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.