Suicide only really frightens those who are never tempted by it and never will be, for its darkness only welcomes those who are predestined to it.
What does the truth matter? Haven’t we mothers all given our sons a taste for lies, lies which from the cradle upwards lull them, reassure them, send them to sleep: lies as soft and warm as a breast!
Hope is a risk that must be run.
Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.
A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.
The world is eaten up by boredom. You can’t see it all at once. It is like dust. You go about and never notice, you breathe it in, you eat and drink it. It is sifted so fine, it doesn’t even grit on your teeth. But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands.
Lust is a mysterious wound in the side of humanity; or rather, at the very source of its life! To confound this lust in man with that desire which unites the sexes is like confusing a tumor with the very organ which it devours, a tumor whose very deformity horribly reproduces the shape.
The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.
Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.
The wish to pray is a prayer in itself.