Although our moral conscience is a part of our consciousness, we do not feel ourselves on an equality with it. In this voice which makes itself heard only to give us orders and establish prohibitions, we cannot recognize our own voices; the very tone in which it speaks to us warns us that it expresses something within us that is not of ourselves.

When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of history that he is formed.

When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul.

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.

One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.

Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.