To live entirely without a goal! I have glimpsed this state, and have often attained it, without managing to remain there: I am too weak for such happiness.

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

In a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.

Maniacs of Procreation, bipeds with devalued faces, we have lost all appeal for each other.

The limit of every pain is an even greater pain.

We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly.

Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.