Paradise was unendurable, otherwise the first man would have adapted to it; this world is no less so, since here we regret paradise or anticipate another one. What to do? Where to go? Do nothing and go nowhere, easy enough.

Our first intuitions are the true ones.

The need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla.

Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there.

The history of ideas is the history of the grudges of solitary men.

To act is to anchor in the imminent future.

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