philosophy must give up her attempt at finding the veritates aeternae. The business of philosophy is to teach man to live in uncertainty - man who is supremely afraid of uncertainty, and who is forever hiding himself behind this or the other dogma.

the business of philosophy is not to reassure people but to upset them.

There are superfluous people, plenty of them. But what is to be done with them? No one knows. There remains only to invent philosophies on their behalf.

The best, the most effective way of convincing a reader is to begin one's argument with inoffensive, commonplace assertions.

When suspicion has been lulled, and a certainty has been begot that what follows is a confirmation of the reader's own accepted views, then has the moment arrived to speak one's mind openly, but still in the same easy tone, as if there were no break in the flow of truisms

The thing to do is to go on, in the same suave tone, from uttering a series of banalities to expressing a new and dangerous thought, without any break. If you succeed in this, the reader will not forget - the new words will plague and torment him until he has accepted them.

Philosophy must have nothing in common with logic; philosophy is an art which aims at breaking the logical continuity of argument and bringing man out on the shoreless sea of imagination, the fantastic tides where everything is equally possible and impossible.

Objectionable, tedious, irritating labour, - this is the condition of genius, which no doubt explains the reason why men so rarely achieve anything. Genius must submit to cultivate an ass within itself - the condition being so humiliating that man will seldom take up the job

Genius is a wretched, blind maniac, whose eccentricities are condoned because of what is got from him.

“The writer is writing away, the reader is reading away" - the writer doesn't care what the reader is after, the reader doesn't care what the writer is about.

Moral people are the most revengeful of mankind, they employ their morality as the most subtle weapon of vengeance. They are not satisfied with simply despising and condemning their neighbour themselves, they want the condemnation to be universal and supreme

once the laws of morality are autonomous, and once ideas are allowed to stand above the empirical needs of mankind, it is impossible to balance ideas and morality with social requirements, or even with the salvation of the country from ruin

Creative activity is a continual progression from failure to failure, and the condition of the creator is usually one of uncertainty, mistrust, and shattered nerves. The more serious and original the task which a man sets himself, the more tormenting is the self-misgiving.

For this reason even men of genius cannot keep up the creative activity to the last. As soon as they have acquired their technique, they begin to repeat themselves, well aware that the public willingly endures the monotony of a favourite, even finds virtue in it

While conscience stands between the educated and the lower classes, as the only possible mediator, there can be no hope for mutual understanding.

In the "ultimate questions of life" we are not a bit nearer the truth than our ancestors were. Everybody knows it, and yet so many go on talking about infinity, without any hope of ever saying anything.

All the best poetry, all the wonderful mythology of the ancients and of modern peoples have for their source the fear of death. Only modern science forbids men to fear, and insists on a tranquil attitude towards death. So we arrive at utilitarianism and the positivist philosophy

If you wish to be rid of both these creeds you must be allowed to think again of death, and without shame to fear hell and its devils

idealism needs be prompt, for if she leaves us one single moment in which to see, we shall see such things as are not easily explained away. That is why idealists stick so tight to logic. In the twinkling of an eye logic will convey us to the remotest conclusions and forecasts

Psychology at last leads us to conclude that the most generous human impulses spring from a root of egoism. Tolstoy’s "love to one's neighbour," for example, proves to be a branch of the old self-love. The same may be said of Kant's idealism, and even of Plato's.