To possess a high degree of consciousness, to be always aware of yourself in relation to the world, to live in the permanent tension of knowledge, means to be lost for life.

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

Woes and wonders of power, that tonic hell, synthesis of poison and panacea.

Those who believe in their truth -- the only ones whose imprint is retained by the memory of men -- leave the earth behind them strewn with corpses. Religions number in their ledgers more murders than the bloodiest tyrannies account for, and those whom humanity has called divine far surpass the most conscientious murderers in their thirst for slaughter.

One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other.

When every man has realized that his birth is a defeat, existence, endurable at last, will seem like the day after a surrender, like the relief and the repose of the conquered.

Skepticism is the sadism of embittered souls.