I realize that, while often happy and often cheerful, I am always sad.

Attention to detail and a perfectionist instinct, far from stimulating action, are character qualities that lead to renunciation. Better to dream than to be.

I'm going to end a life that I thought could contain every kind of greatness but that in fact consisted only of my incapacity to really want to be great. Whenever I arrived at a certainty, I remembered that those with the greatest certainties are lunatics.

There's a non-existent peace in the uncertain quietness

We live by action—by acting on desire. Those of us who don't know how to want—whether geniuses or beggars—are related by impotence.

This world is for those who are born to conquer it, Not for those who dream that are able to conquer it, even if they're right.

There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.