The use of philosophy is to sadden. A philosophy which saddens no one, that annoys no one, is not a philosophy. It is useful for harming stupidity, for turning stupidity into something shameful. Its only use is the exposure of all forms of baseness of thought.

When someone asks 'what's the use of philosophy?' the reply must be aggressive, since the question tries to be ironic and caustic. Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power.

I have always felt that I am an empiricist, that is, a pluralist.

An exhausted man is much more than a weary man. Does he exhaust the possible because he is himself exhausted, or is he exhausted because he has exhausted the possible? He exhausts himself by exhausting the possible, and inversely.

The body of the woman is the overwhelming triumph of flesh. The woman is a concrete universal; she is a world, not an externalized world, but under the world, the warm interiority of the world, a compressed internalized world.

Academics' lives are seldom interesting.