The good tidings which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lost in a void the very moment he opens his mouth.

I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.

It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.

If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.

Rather than ask, What is the attitude of a work to the relations of production of its time? I should like to ask, What is its position in them.

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

Books, too, begin like the week – with a day of rest in memory of their creation. The preface is their Sunday.