We prove what we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove.

What is a thousand years? Time is short for one who thinks, endless for one who yearns.

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.

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.

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.

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

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.