How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history - greater than the fall of empires - I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.

Ideas come as you walk, Nietzsche said. Walking dissipates thoughts, Shankara taught.

What to think of other people? I ask myself this question each time I make a new acquaintance. So strange does it seem to me that we exist, and that we consent to exist.

I seem to myself, among civilized men, an intruder, a troglodyte enamored of decrepitude, plunged into subversive prayers.

What is that one crucifixion compared to the daily kind any insomniac endures?

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

There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be.