Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.

Only one thing matters: learning to be the loser.

In order to have the stuff of a tyrant, a certain mental derangement is necessary.

The only way of enduring one disaster after the next is to love the very idea of disaster: if we succeed, there are no further surprises, we are superior to whatever occurs, we are invincible victims.

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

All that shimmers on the surface of the world, all that we call interesting, is the fruit of ignorance and inebriation.

Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.