Life and Existence

Pesons le gain et la perte, en prenant croix que Dieu est. Estimons ces deux cas: Si vous gagnez, vous gagnez tout; si vous perdez, vous ne perdez rien. Gagez donc qu’il est, sans hésiter!

L’homme n’est qu’un roseau, le plus faible de la nature, mais c’est un roseau pensant .

We shall die alone.

What is it, then, that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.

What is it, then, that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.

People ought to be one of two things, young or old. No; what’s the use of fooling? People ought to be one of two things, young or dead.

[ On being warned by her doctor that if she didn’t stop drinking she would be dead within a month :] Promises, promises!

[ On being told at a party that people were ducking for apples :] There, but for a typographical error, is the story of my life.

[ Telegram to Mary Sherwood, who finally had her baby after a much-ballyhooed pregnancy, 1915 :]

[ Her suggested epitaph for herself :] Excuse My Dust.

One cannot really be Catholic & grown-up.

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.

If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.

And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.

If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened —that, surely was more terrifying than mere torture and death?

Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.

War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war brings it home to the individual that he is not altogether an individual. It is only because they are aware of this that men will die on the field of battle.

The heart is an organ of fire.

We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden as if in caves.

In the past few days . . . it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort [to remain in office as president despite the Watergate scandal]. . . . But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.

[ Welcoming back the crew of Apollo 11 from the first moon landing :] This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation.

Electric flesh-arrows . . . traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eye-lids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm.

Woman does not forget she needs the fecundator, she does not forget that every thing that is born of her is planted in her.

Woman does not forget she needs the fecundator, she does not forget that every thing that is born of her is planted in her.