#the book of disquiet

I’m older than Time and Space, because I’m conscious. Things derive from me; the whole of Nature is the offspring of

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The world belongs to those who don’t feel. The essential condition for being a practical man is the absence of sensibility.

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It’s the central error of the literary imagination to suppose that others are like us and must feel as we do. Fortunately

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Grammar, in defining usage, makes divisions which are sometimes legitimate, sometimes false. For example, it divides verbs

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I’ve never loved anyone. The most that I’ve loved are my sensations – states of conscious seeing, impressions gathered

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I, a pathetic and anonymous office clerk, write words as if they were the soul’s salvation.

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Walking on these streets, until the night falls, my life feels to me like the life they have. By day they’re full of

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The wise man makes his life monotonous, for then even the tiniest incident becomes imbued with great significance.

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The instinctive persistence of life over and above any intelligence is something that provides matter for some of my

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I question myself but do not know myself. The part of my life not wasted in thinking up confused interpretations of nothing

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I’ve always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself.

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I enjoy using words. Or rather: I enjoy making words work. For me words are tangible bodies, visible sirens, sensualities

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My life: a tragedy booed off the stage by the gods after only the first act. Friends: none. Just a few acquaintances who

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I still haven’t managed not to feel the pain of my solitude. It is so difficult to achieve the distinction of spirit that

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I loathe the happiness of all these people who don’t know they’re unhappy. Their true life is vegetative, their sufferings

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If I hear myself speaking out loud, the ears with which I hear myself speaking out loud do not listen to me in the same way

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For the aesthete, tragedies are interesting to observe, but uncomfortable to experience.

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The trivialities natural to life, the insignificancies of the normal and vulgar, lie like a layer of dust, tracing a blurred,...

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For everything that exists I feel a visual affection, an intellectual fondness –

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If there is one thing I loathe, it’s a reformer. A reformer is a man who sees the superficial ills of the world and

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When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of

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Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since

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It is not tedium that one feels. It is not grief. It is not even tiredness that one feels. It is the desire to go to

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A cup of coffee, a cigarette and my dreams can substitute quite well for the universe and its stars, for work, love, and

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