487 quotes
Knowledge is the plague of life, and consciousness, an open wound in its heart.
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
Can it really be that for us existence means exile, and nothingness, home?
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
To tell the truth, I couldn't care less about the relativity of knowledge, simply because the world does not deserve to be known.
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
To have failed in everything, always, out of a love of discouragement.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
"Neither this world, nor the next, nor happiness are for the being abandoned to doubt." — This point in the Gita is my death sentence.
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
Jealousy - that jumble of secret worship and ostensible aversion.
All my life, I have lived with the feeling that I have been kept from my true place. If the expression "metaphysical exile" had no meaning, my existence alone would afford it one.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
The pessimist has to invent new reasons to exist every day: he is a victim of the "meaning" of life.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.
History and Utopia (1960)
The advantage of meditating upon life and death is being able to say anything at all about them.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
One of the greatest delusions of the average man is to forget that life is death's prisoner.
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity?
History and Utopia (1960)
Tragic paradox of freedom: the mediocre men who alone make its exercise possible cannot guarantee its duration.
History and Utopia (1960)
When you love someone, you hope — the more closely to be attached — that a catastrophe will strike your beloved.
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
It makes no sense to say that death is the goal of life, but what else is there to say?
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved.
Tears and Saints (1937)
Refinement is a sign of a deficient vitality, in art, in love, and in everything.
The New Gods (1969)
Life inspires more dread than death — it is life which is the great unknown.
A Short History of Decay (1949)
Objection to scientific knowledge: this world doesn't deserve to be known.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
The skeptic is the least mysterious man in the world, and yet, starting from a certain moment, he no longer belongs to this world.
The New Gods (1969)