“As to your Newton, I confess I do not understand his void and his gravity; I admit he has demonstrated the movement of the heavenly bodies with more exactitude than his forerunners; but you will admit it is an absurdity to maintain the existence of Nothing.
[Letter to Voltaire, 25 Nov. 1777]”
―
[Letter to Voltaire, 25 Nov. 1777]”
―
“I have been studying for forty years, which is to say forty wasted years; I teach others yet am ignorant of everything; this state of affairs fills my soul with so much humiliation and disgust that my life is intolerable. I was born in Time, I live in Time, and do not know what Time is. I find myself at a point between two eternities, as our wise men say, yet I have no conception of eternity. I am composed of matter, I think, but have never been able to discover what produces thought. I do not know whether or not I think with my head the same way that I hold things with my hands. Not only is the origin of my thought unknown to me, but the origin of my movements is equally hidden: I do not know why I exist. Yet every day people ask me questions on all these issues. I must give answers, yet have nothing worth saying, so I talk a great deal, and am confused and ashamed of myself afterwards for having spoken.”
― Micromégas and Other Short Fictions
― Micromégas and Other Short Fictions
“As for man, his days are numbered, whatever he might do, it is but wind.”
― The Epic of Gilgamesh
― The Epic of Gilgamesh
“But,' I reminded myself, 'it's common knowledge that life isn't worth living, anyhow.”
― The Stranger
― The Stranger
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