Tyranny destroys or strengthens the individual; freedom enervates him, until he becomes no more than a puppet. Man has more chances of saving himself by hell than by paradise.

Knowledge subverts love: in proportion as we penetrate our secrets, we come to loathe our kind, precisely because they resemble us.

Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.

To live entirely without a goal! I have glimpsed this state, and have often attained it, without managing to remain there: I am too weak for such happiness.

Insomnia is a vertiginous lucidity that can convert paradise itself into a place of torture.

If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago. But God as well as the saints is a means to escape the dull banality of truth.

Progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its predecessors.