Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress. When you realize there are no goals or objectives, then you realize, too, that there is no chance: for only in a world of objectives does the word chance have any meaning.

The most dangerous physicians are those born actors who imitate born physicians with a perfectly deceptive guile.

A philosophical mythology lies concealed in language, which breaks out again at every moment, no matter how cautious we may be.

I absolutely cannot see how one can later make up for having failed to go to a good school at the proper time. For this is what distinguishes the hard school as a good school from all others: that much is demanded; and sternly demanded; that the good, even the exceptional, is demanded as the norm; that praise is rare, that indulgence is nonexistent; that blame is apportioned sharply, objectively, without regard for talent or antecedents. What does one learn in a hard school? Obeying and commanding.

I call a lie: wanting not to see something one does see, wanting not to see something as one sees it... The most common lie is the lie one tells to oneself; lying to others is relatively the exception.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

In our own presence, we all pretend to be simpler than we are: thus we take a break from our fellow human beings.