True moral elegance consists in the art of disguising one's victories as defeats.

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.

Only one endowed with restless vitality is susceptible to pessimism. You become a pessimist-a demonic, elemental, bestial pessimist-only when life has been defeated many times in its fight against depression.

We dread the future only when we are not sure we can kill ourselves when we want to.

You are done for - a living dead man - not when you stop loving but stop hating. Hatred preserves: in it, in its chemistry, resides the mystery of life.

An aphorism? Fire without flames. Understandable that no one tries to warm himself at it.

Just as ecstasy purifies you of the particular and the contingent, leaving nothing except light and darkness, so insomnia kills off the multiplicity and diversity of the world, leaving you prey to your private obsessions.