To live in any true sense of the word is to reject others; to accept them, one must be able to renounce, to do oneself violence, to act against one's own nature, to weaken oneself; we conceive freedom only for ourselves - we extend it to our neighbours only at the cost of exhausting efforts; whence the precariousness of liberalism, a defiance of our instincts, a brief and miraculous success, a state of exception, at the antipodes of our deepest imperatives.

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.

Thinking should be like musical meditation. Has any philosopher pursued a thought to its limits the way Bach or Beethoven develop and exhaust a musical theme? Even after having read the most profound thinkers, one still feels the need to begin anew. Only music gives definitive answers.

What a pity that 'nothingness' has been devalued by an abuse of it made by philosophers unworthy of it!

Insomnia is a vertiginous lucidity that can convert paradise itself into a place of torture.

Ideas come as you walk, Nietzsche said. Walking dissipates thoughts, Shankara taught.

If you lack the power to demoralize yourself along with the age, to go as low and as far, do not complain of being misunderstood by it.