Tragic paradox of freedom: the mediocre men who alone make its exercise possible cannot guarantee its duration.

My enthusiasms...constitute my reserves, my unexploited resources, perhaps my future.

Wisdom disguises our wounds; it teaches us how to bleed in secret.

The curtain of the universe is moth-eaten, and through its holes we see nothing now but mask and ghost.

Afflicted with existence, each man endures like an animal the consequences which proceed from it. Thus, in a world where everything is detestable, hatred becomes huger than the world and, having transcended its object, cancels itself out.

Espousing the melancholy of ancient symbols, I would have freed myself.

Where are my sensations? They have melted into... me, and what is this me, this self, but the sum of these evaporated sensations?