All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

The mind was dreaming. The world was its dream.

Besides, rereading, not reading, is what counts.

Many people have thought of me as a thinker, as a philosopher, or even as a mystic. Well the truth is that though I have found reality perplexing enough - in fact, I find it gets more perplexing all the time - I never think of myself as a thinker.

Israelites, Christians and Muslims profess immortality, but the veneration they render this world proves they believe only in it, since they destine all other worlds, in infinite number, to be its reward or punishment.

He was very religious; he believed that he had a secret pact with God which exempted him from doing good in exchange for prayers and piety.