Life is merely a fracas on an unmapped terrain, and the universe a geometry stricken with epilepsy.

Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved.

Every form of talent involves a certain shameless-ness.

My mission is to suffer for all those who suffer without knowing it. I must pay for them, expiate their unconsciousness, their luck to be ignorant of how unhappy they are.

All people see fires, storms, explosions, or landscapes; but how many feel the flames, the lightnings, the whirlwinds, or the harmony? How many have an inner beauty that tinges their melancholy?

There is not much difference between a mortal man and a dying man. The absurdity of making plans is only slightly more obvious in the second case.

We change ideas like neckties.