All Quotes

"The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity."

"Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps."

"The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon."

"The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money."

"A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links."

"He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity."

"Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded."

"The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say "I" and "me." "It will probably rain "—that is dogmatic. "I think it will rain"—that is natural and modest. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne. He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him."

"Convictions are variable; to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest."

"The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself."

"The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect."

"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher."

"Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain."

"Happiness is lost by criticizing it; sorrow by accepting it."

"When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had."

"Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered."

"Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!"

"To the eye of failure success is an accident."

"While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide."

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

"You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen."

"If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat."

"It is too early to love. We will buy the right to do so by shedding blood."

"Your church is a whore: she sells her favors to the rich."

"Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil."

"Yes, I am so free. And what a superb absence is my soul."

"The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being."

"Adieu les monstres! Adieu les saints! Adieu l'orgueil! Il n'y a que des hommes."

"Man is always separated from what he is by all the breadth of the being which he is not. He makes himself known to himself from the other side of the world and he looks from the horizon toward himself to recover his inner being."

"Generally speaking there is no irreducible taste or inclination. They all represent a certain appropriative choice of being. It is up to existential psychoanalysis to compare and classify them. Ontology abandons us here; it has merely enabled us to determine the ultimate ends of human reality, its fundamental possibilities, and the value which haunts it."

"But [your crime] will be there, one hundred times denied, always there, dragging itself behind you. Then you will finally know that you have committed your life with one throw of the die, once and for all, and there is nothing you can do but tug our crime along until your death. Such is the law, just and unjust, of repentance. Then we will see what will become of your young pride."

"Be quiet! Anyone can spit in my face, and call me a criminal and a prostitute. But no one has the right to judge my remorse."

"Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear."

"Admit it, it is your youth that you regret, more even than your crime; it is my youth you hate, even more than my innocence."

"One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life."

"Some men are born committed to action: they do not have a choice, they have been thrown on a path, at the end of that path, an act awaits them, their act."

"They are in bad faith — they are afraid — and fear, bad faith have an aroma that the gods find delicious. Yes, the gods like that, the pitiful souls."

"Ah! Do not judge the gods, young man, they have painful secrets."

"Her face seems ravaged by both lightning and hail. But on yours there is something like the promise of a storm: one day passion will burn it to the bone."

"I felt less alone when I didn't know you yet: I was waiting for the other. I thought only of his strength and never of my weakness. And now here you are, Orestes, it was you. I look at you and I see that we are two orphans."

"A man who is free is like a mangy sheep in a herd. He will contaminate my entire kingdom and ruin my work."

"Nicias, do you think you can erase with good deeds the wrongs you committed against your mother? What good deed will ever reach her? Her soul is a scorching noon time, without a single breath of a breeze, nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing lives there; a great emaciated sun, an immobile sun eternally consumes her."

"What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me."

"Commoners are weightless. But he was a royal bon vivant who, no matter what, always weighed 125 kilos. I would be very surprised if he didn't have a few pounds left."

"All-powerful god, who am I but the fear that I inspire in others?"

"Blood doubly unites us, for we share the same blood and we have spilled blood."

"Suppose that I wish to deserve the title of "robber of remorse" and that I place in myself all [the townspeople's] repentence?"

"But, if it will help ease your irritated souls, please know, dearly departed, that you have ruined our lives."

"It is for the sake of order that I seduced Clytemnestra, for the sake of order that I killed my king. I wanted for order to rule and that it rule through me. I have lived without desire, without love, without hope: I made order. Oh! terrible and divine passion!"

"Understand me: I wish to be a man from somewhere, a man among men. You see, a slave, when he passes by, weary and surly, carrying a heavy load, limping along and looking down at his feet, only at his feet to avoid falling down; he is in his town, like a leaf in greenery, like a tree in a forest, argos surrounds him, heavy and warm, full of herself; I want to be that slave, Electra, I want to pull the city around me and to roll myself up in it like a blanket. I will not leave."