Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem.

The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.

What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms.

Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own being.

People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves

What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself.

What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance.