“Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species – we, in short – had the potential to construct an enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.”

The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite.

It is this refrain that we hear repeated by everyone: you are not at home, this is not a sanatorium, the only exit is by way of the Chimney. (What did it mean? Soon we were all to learn what it meant.)

Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need.

The aims of life are the best defense against death.

To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn’t.

The problem to be solved, the mystery to be clarified. It is never a matter of civil war; even though of different opinions, or of different political leanings, scientists dispute each other, they compete.

Is anything sadder than a trainThat leaves when it’s supposed to,That has only one voice,Only one route?There’s nothing sadder.Except perhaps a cart horse,Shut between two shaftsAnd unable even to look sideways.

Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.

We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.

I am constantly amazed by man’s inhumanity to man.

The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.

The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.

In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed:.

Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.

We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience.

The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium.

I’d really like to be in closer contact with life. I’m a little too distant, I guess. I like to place myself outside.

Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and free competition of themarket, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature.

One of my roles was as a commercial manager for liquid natural gas shipping, project economics and contract negotiation.

“No thought lives in your head rent-free.” Each thought you have will either be an investment or a cost.

A lifetime contract for a coach means if you’re ahead in the third quarter and moving the ball, they can’t fire you.

The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law. Delicate line gathers the body’s total strength in a bold balance. Shall my soul meet so severe a curve, journeying on its way to form?

I had a great shoe contract and glove contract with a company who paid me a lot of money never to be seen using their stuff.

It seems superfluous to constrain trading in some of the newer derivatives and other innovative financial contracts of the past decade.