Life without utopia is suffocating, for the multitude at least: threatened otherwise with petrifaction, the world must have a new madness.

True contact between beings is established only by mute presence, by apparent non-communication, by that mysterious and wordless exchange which resembles inward prayer.

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.

Discretion is deadly to genius; ruinous to talent.

History is nothing but a procession of false Absolutes, a series of temples raised to pretexts, a degradation of the mind before the Improbable.

Melancholy: an appetite no misery satisfies.

There is no limit to suffering.