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

As incompetent in life as in death, I loathe myself and in this loathing I dream of another life, another death. And for having sought to be a sage such as never was, I am only a madman among the mad.

I thought that the only action a man could perform without shame was to take his life; that he had no right to diminish himself in the succession of days and the inertic of misery. No elect, I kept telling myself, but those who committed suicide.

I dream of wanting — and all I want seems to me worthless.

To repeat to yourself a thousand times a day: 'Nothing on Earth has any worth,' to keep finding yourself at the same point, to circle stupidly as a top, eternally...

Why do you lack the strength to escape the obligation to breathe?

Nothing is indefensible — from the absurdest proposition to the most monstrous crime.

History proves nothing because it contains everything.

History shows that the thinkers who mounted on the top of the ladder of questions, who set their foot on the last rung, that of the absurd, have bequeathed to posterity only an example of sterility.

I find in myself as much evil as in anyone, but detesting action — mother of all vices — I am the cause of no one's suffering.