All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.
Giving and receiving are at bottom one thing, dependent on whether one lives open or closed. Living openly one becomes a medium, a transmitter; living thus, as a river, one experiences life to the full, flows along with the current of life, and dies in order to live again as an ocean.
Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.
There's nothing wrong with the world. What's wrong is our way of looking at it.
Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.
There was another thing I heartily disbelieved in - work. Work, it seemed to me even at the threshold of life, is an activity reserved for the dullard. It is the very opposite of creation, which is play… The part of me which was given up to work, which enabled my wife and child to live in the manner which they unthinkingly demanded, this part of me which kept the wheel turning - a completely fatuous, ego-centric notion! - was the least part of me. I gave nothing to the world in fulfilling the function of breadwinner; the world exacted its tribute of me, that was all.
If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.
I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.
There's something perverse about women...they're all masochists at heart.
The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.
I am of the order whose purpose is not to teach the world a lesson but to explain that school is over.
The world is the mirror of myself dying.
We create our fate everyday
Next to love friendship, in my opinion, is the most valuable thing life has to offer.
In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money. Money, money everywhere and still not enough! And then no money, or a little money, or less money, or more money but money always money. and if you have money, or you don't have money, it is the money that counts, and money makes money, but what makes money make money?
The Frenchman is first and foremost a man. He is likeable often just because of his weaknesses, which are always thoroughly human, even if despicable.
There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.
For one crime which is expiated in prison ten thousand are committed thoughtlessly by those who condemn.
With this book in my hands, reading aloud to my friends, questioning them, explaining to them, I was made clearly to understand that I had no friends, that I was alone in the world. Because in not understanding the meaning of the words, neither I nor my friends, one thing became very clear and that was that there were ways of not understanding and that the difference between the non-understanding of one individual and the non-understanding of another created a world of terra firma even more solid than differences of understanding.
You make me tremendously happy to hold me undivided - to let me be the artist, as it were, and yet not forgo the man, the animal, the hungry, insatiable lover. No woman has ever granted me all the privileges I need - and you, why you sing out so blithely, so boldly, with a laugh even - yes, you invite me to go ahead, be myself, benture anything. I adore you for that. That is where you are truly regal, a woman extraordinary. What a woman you are! I laugh to myself now when I think of you. I have no fear of your femaleness.
Imagination is the voice of the daring.
One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses.
When you travel often, you will be addicted to it forever.
The earth is not a lair, neither is it a prison. The earth is a Paradise, the only one we'll ever know. We will realize it the moment we open our eyes. We don't have to make it a Paradise-it is one. We have only to make ourselves fit to inhabit it. The man with the gun, the man with murder in his heart, cannot possibly recognize Paradise even when he is shown it.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: