You have certainly observed the curious fact that a given word which is perfectly clear when you hear it or use it in everyday language, and which does not give rise to any difficulty when it is engaged in the rapid movement of an ordinary sentence becomes magically embarrassing, introduces a strange resistance, frustrates any effort at definition as soon as you take it out of circulation to examine it separately and look for its meaning after taking away its instantaneous function.

If what has happened in the one person were communicated directly to the other, all art would collapse, all the effects of art would disappear.

The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.

An attitude of permanent indignation signifies great mental poverty. Politics compels it votaries to take that line and you can see their minds growing more impoverished every day, from one burst of righteous indignation to the next.

Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.

We need to wake up from a thought that lasts too long.

The folly of mistaking oneself for an oracle is built right into us.