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.'

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

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.

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.

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.

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.