The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting.

Love consents to all and commands only those who consent. Love is abdication. God is abdication.

To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.

Love: To feel with one's whole self the existence of another being.

Everything without exception which is of value in me comes from somewhere other than myself, not as a gift but as a loan which must be ceaselessly renewed.

Distance is the soul of beauty.

We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.