If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

You see, Mersualt, all the misery and cruelty of our civilisation can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history.

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Then came human beings, they wanted to cling but there was nothing to cling to. Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came the human beings, they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate - for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.

Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and that is its whole secret.

All healthy men have thought of their own suicide