“A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.”

“At the very best, a mind enclosed in language is in prison. It is limited to the number of relations which words can make simultaneously present to it; and remains in ignorance of thoughts which involve the combination of a greater number. These thoughts are outside language, they are unformulable, although they are perfectly rigorous and clear and although every one of the relations they involve is capable of precise expression in words. So the mind moves in a closed space of partial truth, which may be larger or smaller, without ever being able so much as to glance at what is outside.”

“238. I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world.239. But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. “Love is not consolation,” she wrote. “It is light.”240. All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.”

“To love purely is to consent to distance, it is to adore the distance between ourselves and that which we love.”

“Belief in immortality is harmful because it is not in our power to conceive of the soul as really incorporeal. So this belief is in fact a belief in the prolongation of life, and it robs death of its purpose.”

“The future is made of the same stuff as the present.”

“There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.”

“I can, therefore I am.”

“To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.”

“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”

“Beauty always promises, but never gives anything.”