487 quotes
The universal view melts things into a blur.
A Short History of Decay (1949)
To act is to anchor in the imminent future.
History and Utopia (1960)
Skepticism is an exercise in defascination.
The New Gods (1969)
Philosophy's error is to be too endurable.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
Anxiety — or the fanaticism of the worst.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
Glory — once achieved, what is it worth?
History and Utopia (1960)
We are all secularised anarchists today.
History and Utopia (1960)
The only subversive mind is the one that questions the obligation to exist; all the others, the anarchist at the top of the list, compromise with the established order.
The New Gods (1969)
Nothing is a better proof of how far humanity has regressed than the impossibility of finding a single nation, a single tribe, among whom birth still provokes mourning and lamentations.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on. Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
When you know that every problem is only a false problem, you are dangerously close to salvation.
The New Gods (1969)
Everyone must destroy their life. According to the way they do it, they're either triumphants or failures.
The Book of Delusions (1936)
When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Good health is the best weapon against religion. Healthy bodies and healthy minds have never been shaken by religious fears.
Tears and Saints (1937)
Even when nothing happens, everything seems too much for me. What can be said, then, in the presence of an event, any event?
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
A harmonious being cannot believe in God. Saints, criminals, and paupers have launched him, making him available to all unhappy people.
Tears and Saints (1937)
If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago. But God as well as the saints is a means to escape the dull banality of truth.
Tears and Saints (1937)
I have never taken myself for a being. A non-citizen, a marginal type, a nothing who exists only by the excess, by the superabundance of his nothingness.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
From the cradle to the grave, each individual pays for the sin of not being God. That's why life is an uninterrupted religious crisis, superficial for believers, shattering for doubters.
Tears and Saints (1937)
The moments follow each other; nothing lends them the illusion of a content or the appearance of a meaning; they pass; their course is not ours; we contemplate that passage, prisoners of a stupid perception.
A Short History of Decay (1949)