I dream of a language whose words, like fists, would fracture jaws.

What are you waiting for in order to give up?

I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.

Whenever I happen to be in a city of any size, I marvel that riots do not break out everyday: Massacres, unspeakable carnage, a doomsday chaos. How can so many human beings coexist in a space so confined without hating each other to death?

We rightly scorn those who have no made use of their defects, who have not exploited their deficiencies, and have not been enriched by their losses, as we despise any man who does not suffer at being a man or simply at being. Hence no graver insult can be inflicted than to call someone 'happy', no greater flattery than to grant him a 'vein of melancholy'... This is because gaiety is link to no important action and because, except for the mad, no one laughs when he is alone.

I foresee the day when we shall read nothing but telegrams and prayers.

Society is not a disease, it is a disaster. What a stupid miracle that one can live in it.