I lost my sleep, and this is the greatest tragedy that can befall someone. It is much worse than sitting in prison.

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.

For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.

The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion... One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it.

To possess a high degree of consciousness, to be always aware of yourself in relation to the world, to live in the permanent tension of knowledge, means to be lost for life.

However much I have frequented the mystics, deep down I have always sided with the Devil; unable to equal him in power, I have tried to be worthy of him, at least, in insolence, acrimony, arbitrariness and caprice.

Those who believe in their truth -- the only ones whose imprint is retained by the memory of men -- leave the earth behind them strewn with corpses. Religions number in their ledgers more murders than the bloodiest tyrannies account for, and those whom humanity has called divine far surpass the most conscientious murderers in their thirst for slaughter.