Philosophy: Impersonal anxiety; refuge among anemic ideas.

Torment, for some men, is a need, an appetite, and an accomplishment.

Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.

Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.

If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his plans, all his actions, he would say: "I want to be praised."

Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our appetite for power, will lead us inexorably to our ruin.

Do I look like someone who has something to do here on earth?' —That's what I'd like to answer the busybodies who inquire into my activities.