-
Shame on the man who goes to his grave escorted by the miserable hopes that have kept him alive.
-
The curtain of the universe is moth-eaten, and through its holes we see nothing now but mask and ghost.
-
Nothing sweeter than to drag oneself along behind events; and nothing more reasonable. But without a strong dose of madness, no initiative, no enterprise, no gesture. Reason: the rust of our vitality. It is the madman in us who forces us to adventure; once he abandons us, we are lost; everything depends on him, even our vegetative life; it is he who invites us, who obliges us to breathe, and it is also he who forces our blood to venture through our veins. Once he withdraws, we are alone indeed! We cannot be normal and alive at the same time.
-
A great step forward was made the day men understood that in order to torment one another more efficiently they would have to gather together, to organize themselves into a society.
-
Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.
-
If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his plans, all his actions, he would say: "I want to be praised."
-
I never met one interesting mind that was not richly endowed with inadmissible deficiencies.
-
Normal people have nothing to forget.
-
Wisdom disguises our wounds; it teaches us how to bleed in secret.
-
We derive our vitality from our store of madness.
-
I have decided not to oppose anyone ever again, since I have noticed that I always end by resembling my latest enemy.
-
We are all geniuses when we dream.
-
Let us not be needlessly bitter: certain failures are sometimes fruitful.
-
If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason.