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As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philos...more

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The continuous work of our life,” says Montaigne, “is to build death.” He quotes the Latin poets: Prima, quae vitam dedit, hora corpsit. And again: Na...more

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Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual wea...more

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In the face of an obstacle which it is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid. If I persist in beating my fist against a stone wall, my freedo...more

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I should like to be the landscape which I am contemplating, I should like this sky, this quiet water to think themselves within me, that it might be I...more

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God! when you think of all the things you could do and yet somehow never do! All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doe...more

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A normal existence - what could be more irrational? It's fantastic the number of things you're forced not to think about in order to go from one end o...more

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The day had been spent in the expectation of these hours, and now they were crumbling away, becoming, in their turn, another period of expectancy...It...more

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I hadn't known Chancel very well, but ten days earlier I had seen him laughing with the others around the Christmas tree. Maybe Robert was right; the ...more

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(…) symbolism did not fall out of heaven or rise out of subterranean depths: it was elaborated like language, by the human reality…

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The thing that attracted me about philosophy was that it went straight to essentials. I had never liked fiddling detail; I perceived the general signi...more

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(About Sartre...)His death does not separate us. My death will not bring us together again. That is how things are. It is in itself splendid that we w...more

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I’ve done everything I wanted to do, writing books, learning about things, but I’ve been swindled all the same because it’s never anything more.

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The misfortune is that although everyone must come to [death], each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days....more

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Yet I loathe the thought of annihilating myself quite as much now as I ever did. I think with sadness of all the books I’ve read, all the places I’ve ...more