When we speak, in gestures or signs, we fashion a real object in the world; the gesture is seen, the words and the song are heard. The arts are simply a kind of writing, which, in one way or another, fixes words or gestures, and gives body to the invisible.

Profound sadness is always the result of an unhealthy condition of the body. ... We [should] say, 'I am sad; everything looks black to me; but external events are in no way responsible. It's my body that insists on reasoning. These are the opinions of my stomach.'

As opposed to the incoherent spectacle of the world, the real is what is expected, what is obtained and what is discovered by our own movement. It is what is sensed as being within our own power and always responsive to our action.

I have only one thing to say to the melancholy man: 'Look into the distance.' ... When you look at the stars or the ocean's expanse, your eye is completely relaxed; once your eye is relaxed, your mind is unfettered.

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.

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

People who are upset about something ruminate on it whenever they get a chance; they are constantly drawn back to their own unhappy tale as if it were a horror story left open on a table.