487 quotes
What an incitation to hilarity, hearing the word goal while following a funeral procession!
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
The true hero fights and dies in the name of his destiny, and not in the name of a belief.
A Short History of Decay (1949)
The only profound thinkers are the ones who do not suffer from a sense of the ridiculous.
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
What anxiety when one is not sure of one's doubts or wonders: are these actually doubts?
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
I have all the defects of other people yet everything they do seems to me inconceivable.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
For two thousand years, Jesus has revenged himself on us for not having died on a sofa.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
They ask you for facts, proofs, works, and all you can show them are transformed tears.
The New Gods (1969)
Melancholy redeems this universe, and yet it is melancholy that separates us from it.
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
To read is to let someone else work for you — the most delicate form of exploitation.
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
There are questions which, once approached, either isolate you or kill you outright.
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
Of all that makes us suffer, nothing — so much as disappointment — gives us the sensation of at last touching Truth.
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
All morning, I did nothing but repeat: "Man is an abyss, man is an abyss." — I could not, alas, find anything better.
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
We are so lonely in life that we must ask ourselves if the loneliness of dying is not a symbol of our human existence.
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
In order to have the stuff of a tyrant, a certain mental derangement is necessary.
History and Utopia (1960)
If, at the limit, you can rule without crime, you cannot do so without injustices.
History and Utopia (1960)
To conceive a thought — just one, but one that would tear the universe to pieces.
The New Gods (1969)
Progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its predecessor.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
What am I, other than a chance in the infinite probabilities of not having been!
The Book of Delusions (1936)
What is that one crucifixion compared to the daily kind any insomniac endures?
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
No one should try to live if he has not completed his training as a victim.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)