If one gets on with the job that lies to hand, the ultimate purpose of the job fades into insignificance.
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon and the day after that, and the next thirty years?
What was the point of worshipping a god if he did not help you?
We are, so to speak, bom twice: once to exist and once to live; once for our species and once for our sex.[Nous naissons, pour ainsi dire, en deux fois: l’une pour exister, et l’autre pour vivre; l’une pour l’espèce, et l’autre pour le sexe.]
We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow of a giant question mark that refers to three questions: Where do we come from? Why? And where, oh where, are we going!
Though all things in society as well as in the universe are said to have a purpose, there do exist here below certain beings whose purpose and utility seem inexplicable.
They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.
There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning DESIRE to possess it.
The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.
Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late.
No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.
