It's in an inland sea that the river of my life ended.

Decadence is the total loss of unconsciousness, which is the very basis of life. Could it think, the heart would stop beating.

One or another man, liberated or cursed, suddenly sees-but even this man sees rarely-that all we are is what we aren't, that we fool ourselves about what's true and are wrong about what we conclude is right. And this man, who in a flash sees the universe naked, creates a philosophy or dreams up a religion; and the philosophy spreads and the religion propagates, and those who believe in the philosophy begin to wear it as a suit they don't see, and those who believe in the religion put it on as a mask they soon forget.

To live strikes me as a metaphysical mistake of matter, a dereliction of inaction.

To choose ways of not acting was ever the concern and scruple of my life.

Direct experience is the evasion, or hiding place of those devoid of imagination.

We worship perfection because we can't have it; if we had it, we would reject it. Perfection is inhuman, because humanity is imperfect.