In a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.

A distant enemy is always preferable to one at the gate.

Life inspires more dread than death - it is life which is the great unknown.

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

Jealousy - that jumble of secret worship and ostensible aversion.

It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.

Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?

Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers.

In order to have the stuff of a tyrant, a certain mental derangement is necessary.

In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world.

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.

No one recovers from the disease of being born, a deadly wound if there ever was one.

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.

A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.