"Woes and wonders of Power, that tonic hell, synthesis of poison and panacea."

"We derive our vitality from our store of madness."

"The task of the solitary man is to be even more solitary."

"Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh."

"You are done for - a living dead man - not when you stop loving but stop hating. Hatred preserves: in it, in its chemistry, resides the mystery of life."

"To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy."

"Nothing proves that we are more than nothing."

"Under each formula lies a corpse."

"I have no nationality - the best possible status for an intellectual."

"Our works, whatever they may be, derive from our incapacity to kill or to kill ourselves."

"Philosophy: Impersonal anxiety; refuge among anemic ideas."

"Revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim."

"Word - that invisible dagger."

"One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other."

"What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?"

"What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity?"

"The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death."

"We die in proportion to the words we fling around us."

"To Live signifies to believe and hope - to lie and to lie to oneself."

"Torment, for some men, is a need, an appetite, and an accomplishment."

"Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an imposter."

"A people represents not so much an aggregate of ideas and theories as of obsessions."

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

"One hardly saves a world without ruling it."

"Jealousy - that jumble of secret worship and ostensible aversion."

"Nothing is so wearing as the possession or abuse of liberty."

"My mission is to kill time, and time's to kill me in its turn. How comfortable one is among murderers."

"Crime in full glory consolidates authority by the sacred fear it inspires."

"By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing."

"Everything is pathology, except for indifference."

"To want fame is to prefer dying scorned than forgotten."

"Every thought derives from a thwarted sensation."

"Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves."

"Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows."

"Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone."

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

"If, at the limit, you can rule without crime, you cannot do so without injustices."

"No one can enjoy freedom without trembling."

"Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young."

"What surrounds us we endure better for giving it a name - and moving on."

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

"Reason is a whore, surviving by simulation, versatility, and shamelessness."