We dread the future only when we are not sure we can kill ourselves when we want to.

I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen--and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies.

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.

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.

What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?

If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.

To want fame is to prefer dying scorned than forgotten.