487 quotes
We must suffer to the end, to the moment when we stop believing in suffering.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection.
The Book of Delusions (1936)
Never to have occasion to take a position, to make up one's mind, or to define oneself — there is no wish I make more often.
History and Utopia (1960)
The more we try to wrest ourselves from our ego, the deeper we sink into it.
History and Utopia (1960)
To think we could have spared ourselves from living all that we have lived!
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
What surrounds us we endure better for giving it a name — and moving on.
A Short History of Decay (1949)
Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.
A Short History of Decay (1949)
That fear which gives birth to thoughts, and the fear of thoughts...
The Book of Delusions (1936)
I used to ask myself, over a coffin: “What good did it do the occupant to be born?,” I now put the same question about anyone alive.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are.
Tears and Saints (1937)
I dream of wanting — and all I want seems to me worthless.
A Short History of Decay (1949)
I feel effective, competent, likely to do something positive only when I lie down and abandon myself to an interrogation without object or end.
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
We die in proportion to the words we fling around us.
A Short History of Decay (1949)
No longer ask me for my program: isn't breathing one?
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
Every thought derives from a thwarted sensation.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
All that is Life in me urges me to give up God.
Tears and Saints (1937)
Tyranny is just what one can develop a taste for, since it so happens that man prefers to wallow in fear rather than to face the anguish of being himself.
History and Utopia (1960)
Erect I make a resolution; prone I revoke it.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
Impossible to spend sleepless nights and accomplish anything: if, in my youth, my parents had not financed my insomnias, I should surely have killed myself.
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)