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.

When we cannot be delivered from ourselves, we delight in devouring ourselves.

Philosophy is a corrective against sadness. Yet there still are people who believe in the profundity of philosophy!

Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?

I am the beast with a contorted grin, contracting down to illusion and dilating toward infinity, both growing and dying, delightfully suspended between hope for nothing and despair of everything, brought up among perfumes and poisons, consumed with love and hatred, killed by lights and shadows. My symbol is death of light and the flame of death. Sparks die in me only to be reborn as thunder and lightning. Darkness itself glows in me.

To accomplish nothing and die of the strain

We would not be interested in human beings if we did not have the hope of someday meeting someone worse off than ourselves.