At times discreetly, at times disgustingly, I yielded to the most fatal temptation whenever I could no longer bear it: as a result of impatience, Orpheus lost Eurydice; as a result of impatience, I lost myself.
Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.
Yes, I am so free. And what a superb absence is my soul.
Ah! Do not judge the gods, young man, they have painful secrets.
Abjection is a methodological conversion, like Cartesian doubt and Husserlian epoche: it establishes the world as a closed system which consciousness regards from without, in the manner of divine understanding.
Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself.
If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly; leave it on earth: die light.
L’homme est une passion inutile. Man is a useless passion.
Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn’t exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn’t possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey.
We make our own hell out of the people around us.
In any case, if you ever leave me with a handsome man, do not tell me that you trust me because, let me warn you: that is not what will prevent me from deceiving you, if I want to. On the contrary.
It is better; heavier, crueler. The mouth you wear for hell.
Criminals together. We’re in hell, my little friend, and there’s never any mistake there. People are not damned for nothing.
Sometimes the truth is too simple for intellectuals.
What is life but an unpleasant interruption to a peaceful nonexistence.
Un homme n’est rien d’autre qu’une se rie d’entreprises. A man is no other than a series of undertakings.
If you want to deserve Hell, you need only stay in bed. The world is iniquity; if you accept it, you are an accomplice, if you change it you are an executioner.
Something begins in order to end: an adventure doesn’t let itself be extended it achieves significance only through its death.
But I must finally realize that I am subject to these sudden transformations. The thing is that I rarely think; a crowd of small metamorphoses accumulate in me without my noticing it, and then, one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place.
I am not asking for sensational revelations, but I would like to sense the meaning of that minute, to feel it’s urgency...