What are you waiting for in order to give up?

I have all the defects of other people yet everything they do seems to me inconceivable.

When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it.

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

It is a great force, and a great fortune, to be able to live without any ambition whatever. I aspire to it, but the very fact of so aspiring still participates in ambition.

Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil.

I pride myself on my capacity to perceive the transitory character of everything. An odd gift which has spoiled all my joys; better: all my sensations.

The only thing the young should be taught is that there is virtually nothing to be hoped for from life. One dreams of a Catalogue of Disappointments which would include all the disillusionments reserved for each and every one of us, to be posted in the schools.

We make choices, decisions, as long as we keep to the surface of things; once we reach the depths, we can neither choose nor decide, we can do nothing but regret the surface...

It is trifling to believe in what you do or in what others do. You should avoid simulacra and even "realities"; you should take up a position external to everything and everyone, drive off or grind down your appetites, live, according to a Hindu adage, with as few desires as a "solitary elephant.