QUOTES

“There is nothing more surreal than reality itself.”

“It is wrong to say: I think. One ought to say: I am thought. I is someone else.”

“And, after all, what is a lie?
’Tis but the truth in masquerade; and I defy historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put a fact without some leaven of a lie.”

“Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.”

“Priests, professors, masters, you are wrong to turn me over to Justice. I have never belonged to this people. I have never been Christian. I am of the race that sang under torture. I do not understand your laws. I have no moral sense, I am a brute.”

“Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.”

“Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers.”

“Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly.
Activity makes the hours short
and the years long.”

“The great object of life is sensation- to feel that we exist, even though in pain.”

“Opinions are made to be changed - or how is truth to be got at?”

“Are you or aren’t you convinced that weakness is a man’s condition? How can you raise yourself if you haven’t fallen first?”

“The man of action is not the headstrong fool who rushes into danger with no thought for himself, but the man who puts into practice the things he knows.”

“We obtain things when we no longer want them.”

“When we consider the being and substance of that universe in which we are immutably set, we shall discover that neither we ourselves nor any substance doth suffer death. For nothing is in fact diminished in its substance, but all things, wandering through infinite space, undergo
change of aspect.”

“All who joy would win
Must share it
Happiness was born a twin.”

“Are not the mountains, waves, and skies as much a part of me, as I of them?”

“I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own.”

“I will tear the veils from every mystery: mysteries of religion or of nature, death, birth, the future, the past, cosmogony, and nothingness. I am a master of phantasmagoria.”

“Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters gold.”

“The only joy in the world
is to begin.”

“We can all do good deeds, but very few of us can think good thoughts.”

“But the real, tremendous truth is this: suffering serves no purpose whatever... ”

“All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a
perfect unity.”

“What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.”

“The memory of joy is no longer joy; the memory of pain is pain still. (Joy’s recollection is no longer joy, while sorrow’s memory is a sorrow still.)”

“I’ve discovered nothing, but do you remember how much we talked when we were boys? We talked just for the fun of it. We knew very well it was only talk, but still we enjoyed it. ”

“What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.”

“The whole soul is in the whole body, in the bones and in the veins and in the heart; it is no more present in one part than in another, and it is no less present in one part than in the whole, nor in the whole less than in one part.”

“Suffering is by no means a privilege, a sign of nobility, a reminder of God. Suffering is a fierce, bestial thing, commonplace, uncalled for, natural as air. It is intangible; no one can grasp it or fight against it; it dwells in time - is the same thing as time; if it comes in fits and starts, that is only so as to leave the sufferer more defenseless during the moments that follow, those long moments when one relives the last bout of torture and waits for the next.”

“The intellectual power is never at rest; it is never satisfied with any comprehended truth, but ever proceeds on and on towards that truth which is not comprehended. So also the will, which follows the apprehension; we see that it is never satisfied with
anything finite.”

“Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction: if it could be told, How much would novels gain by the exchange! How differently the world would men behold!”

“The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.”

“I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority! Let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven!”

“The soul’s joy lies in doing.”

“By all that is sacred in our hope for the human race, I conjure those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the vegetable system!”

“Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.”

“Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.”

“The beginning, middle, and end of the birth, growth, and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries, and to contraries; and whatever contrariety is, there is action and reaction, there is motion, diversity, multitude, and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude.”

“The ‘good old times’ - all times when old are good.”

“A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know.”

“A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men.”

“It is true that the reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds, as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from bringing any argument
in its favour.”

“The mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within... could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the result; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline; and the most glorious poetry that has been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet.”