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We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
The regularity of an impulse or a repulsion in a soul is encountered again in habits of doing or thinking, is reproduced in consequences of which the soul itself knows nothing.
Understanding the world for a man is reducing it to the human, stamping it with his seal. The cat’s universe is not the universe of the anthill.
the fundamental absurdity of all existence, he does not say: “This is the absurd,” but rather: “This is God: we must rely on him even if he does not correspond to any of our rational categories.”
Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one’s consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.
There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects.
Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully.
either we are not free and God the all-powerful is responsible for evil. Or we are free and responsible but God is not all powerful.
What freedom can exist in the fullest sense without assurance of eternity?
Mystics, to begin with, find freedom in giving themselves. By losing themselves in their god, by accepting his rules, they become secretly free.
If the world were clear, art would not exist.
If God exists, all depends on him and we can do nothing against his will. If he does not exist, everything depends on us.
There is no sun without shadow, and it is es-sential to know the night.
The more exciting life is, the more absurd is the idea of losing it.
Sometimes at night I would sleep open-eyed under a sky dripping with stars. I was alive then.