It is not difficult to be unhappy or discontented; all you have to do is sit down, like a prince waiting to be amused. ... It is impossible to be happy if one does not have the desire to be happy; one must therefore will one's happiness, and create it.

It is not difficult to be unhappy or discontented; all you have to do is sit down, like a prince waiting to be amused. ... It is impossible to be happy if one does not have the desire to be happy; one must therefore will one's happiness, and create it.

It is the human condition to question one god after another, one appearance after another, or better, one apparition after another, always pursuing the truth of the imagination, which is not the same as the truth of appearance.

Man himself is an enigma in motion; his questions never stay asked; whereas the mold, the footprint, and by natural extension, the statue itself, like the vaults, the arches, the temples with which man records his own passing, remain immobile and fix a moment of man's life, upon which one might endlessly meditate.

One must be truthful with oneself about one's own motives, especially if one is to survive in the world. It takes rigor, and it takes courage.

If religion is only human, and its form is man's form, it follows that everything in religion is true.

The most difficult thing in the world is to say thinkingly what everybody says without thinking.