The fear of being deceived is the vulgar version of the quest for Truth.

To exist is equivalent to an act of faith, a protest against the truth, an interminable prayer. As soon as they consent to live, the unbeliever and the man of faith are fundamentally the same, since both have made the only decision that defines a being.

To want fame is to prefer dying scorned than forgotten.

I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen--and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies.

Read day and night, devour books - these sleeping pills - not to know but to forget! Through books you can retrace your way back to the origins of spleen, discarding history and its illusions.

If you lack the power to demoralize yourself along with the age, to go as low and as far, do not complain of being misunderstood by it.

When we cannot be delivered from ourselves, we delight in devouring ourselves.