Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.

The present moment is the only aperture through which the soul can pass out of time into eternity, through which grace can pass out of eternity into the soul, and through which love can pass from one soul in time to another soul in time.

The world is an illusion, but an illusion which we must take seriously.

An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex.

Civilization is sterilization.

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. [...] By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable.

The sum of evil, Pascal remarked, would be much diminished if men could only learn to sit quietly in their rooms.