The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.

Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.

Human speech is a cracked cauldron on which we knock out tunes for dancing bears, when we wish to conjure pity from the stars.

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

One must not always think that feeling is everything. Art is nothing without form.

A thing derided is a thing dead; a laughing man is stronger than a suffering man.

A child of my own! Oh, no, no, no! Let my flesh perish with me, and let me not transmit to anyone the boredom and ignominiousness of life.

For none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Our ignorance of history makes us libel to our own times. People have always been like this.

...exaggerated turns of speech conceal mediocre affections: as if the fulness of the soul might not sometimes overflow in the emptiest of metaphors, since no one, ever, can give the exact measurements of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sufferings, and the human word is like a cracked cauldron upon which we beat out melodies fit for making bears dance when we are trying to move the stars to pity.

That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust.

Perfection is the enemy of the good.

Stupidity consists in wanting to reach conclusions. We are a thread, and we want to know the whole cloth.

Be regular and orderly in your life, that you may be violent and original in your work.

The human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope with our music to move the stars.