An aphorism? Fire without flames. Understandable that no one tries to warm himself at it.

Just as ecstasy purifies you of the particular and the contingent, leaving nothing except light and darkness, so insomnia kills off the multiplicity and diversity of the world, leaving you prey to your private obsessions.

If we had the courage to confront the doubts we timidly conceive about ourselves, none of us would utter an 'I' without shame.

Wherever we go, we come up against the human, a repulsive ubiquity before which we fall into stupor and revolt, a perplexity on fire.

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.

A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

Nothing is so wearing as the possession or abuse of liberty.