Prejudices are the props of civilization.

The important thing is being capable of emotions, but to experience only one's own would be a sorry limitation.

I have no use for knowledge that has not been preceded by a sensation

God lies ahead. I convince myself and constantly repeat to myself that: He depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.

One is always wrong to open a conversation with the devil, for, however he goes about it, he always insists upon having the last word.

Yet I'm sure there's something more to be read in a man. People dare not -- they dare not turn the page. The laws of mimicry -- I call them the laws of fear. People are afraid to find themselves alone, and don't find themselves at all. I hate this moral agoraphobia -- it's the worst kind of cowardice. You can't create something without being alone. But who's trying to create here? What seems different in yourself: that's the one rare thing you possess, the one thing which gives each of us his worth; and that's just what we try to suppress. We imitate. And we claim to love life.

From the satisfaction of desire there may arise, accompanying joy and as it were sheltering behind it, something not unlike despair.