I.

☞ Every faculty, every aptitude that we do not use is lost, and the Individuality is diminished to that degree. Its development is also hindered to the same degree. The faculties and aptitudes find their reason for being in the use we make of them, not in abstention from their use. [1.1]

⁂

☞ The absolute is an armchair notion. Everything is relative and there are only relativities. The absolute is itself contingent on our powers of conception and comprehension. In practice, the absolute is, for us, some passion pushed to the point of paroxysm, some sentiment that has come to its furthest functional limit. And even then, the extreme development of a passion or sentiment is always related to the physiological and psychological aspects of our temperaments. [1.2]

⁂

☞ The woman loved in defiance of the law — or, if you prefer, without concern for established morality — is the subject of so many classical, even religious works, that if we withdrew from circulation all the works based on this premise, little would remain of the masterworks of literature, whether of the past or of modern times. So how is it that societies forbid love outside the law? Quite simply because they consider literature only as an hors-d’œuvre or amusement, something like gladiatorial combats or cockfights. [1.3]

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☞ Ingenuity is to genius what know-how is to knowledge. [1.4]

⁂

A dry, abstract, dead philosophy will never attract a single individuality. In order for a philosophy to have any chance of gaining ground, not just in the mind, but in what we call the “heart” of man, it must be living, vibrant, evolving. It must not be an account of rules or a catalog of doctrines: it is essential that it takes the form of a story, that it has the character of an autobiography.

Every philosophy is a corpse if it is not the history of the experiences of the intellectual life, of the psychological existence of the one who expounds it. [1.5]

⁂

☞ Do not hate your enemies indiscriminately. You will find that some of them are more interesting than your friends. You will encounter, among them, some whose cunning, strength, knowledge or self-awareness will fortify your in your attitude toward the resistance of the non-self. [1.6]

⁂

Resist anyone who wants to obstruct the development of your “Self.” Resist anyone who contests your attempts to examine, unveil or uncover what is hidden behind the dogmas and conventions. Resist the orthodox and the conformists. Resist and attack first, if you must, in order to preserve your “life as experience.” [1.7]

⁂

I am the irreconcilable enemy of the sectarian spirit, and yet I am aware that where there is a lack of attachment — I was going to say fanatical attachment — to the opinions that we profess, to the ideas which we cherish, they play no more than a limited, barely visible role in our lives; they cease to be or are not one of our reasons for being, for living, one of the deepest sources, perhaps, of “our” joy in living. It is only when we are firm in our opinions that our opinions, our ideas, are worth spreading — then let us suffer for them to the point of being mocked, hated, persecuted, thrown in prison, put in jail or perhaps put to death — it is only when we are in this state of mind that we derive real, palpable satisfaction from our individual activity. We have created a vital “value” and not a formalist “appearance”. I conclude nothing, I merely observe. [1.8]

Besides, we escape the sectarian spirit when, while holding on to our opinions energetically, we admit that others hold to to their own with as much tenacity. And where there is absolute respect for the ideas of others, — supported by reciprocity, of course, — there is no longer fanaticism, but only conviction. [1.9]

⁂

There is no more enviable fate on the planet — for a sentient being, at least — than to encounter a friend who understands you — a soul mate, if you will and if you are brave enough to overcome the ridicule attached to this term — yes, a soul mate who feels like you, who makes your hopes, your aspirations, even your faults their own — who neither chides nor moralizes, but whom you feel is on your side in days of joy and hours of adversity alike — someone who is another version of yourself, not out of imitation, but out of similarity of temperament and psychological constitution. When you have the pleasure of encountering such a being among the men or women that you love, you can say that your happiness is at its peak. But, let me be clear: I am in no way thinking of someone who could become lost in another’s personality. I am not thinking of one (or more) companions, one (or more) traveling companions who, renouncing themselves, would constitute an artificial alter ego, a doppleganger or double. No, I have in the idea an innate alter ego, a doppelganger that is natural. [1.10]

⁂

To create and to destroy come down to the same thing, for, in the end, everything that is created will disappear. To create is also to innovate, to deny the utility or value of what has existed in the past — to substitute a new value for the old one. [1.11]

⁂

Whoever denies existing values creates a new value, for negation is not skepticism or indifference. It is an aspect of intellectual activity. [1.12]

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The idea of justice directly from the demands of instinct as well as the idea of morality, but civilization has so transformed it that it often aspires to the opposite of what instinct desires. [1.14]

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Dualism. No. There are not two natures in the human being. The human organism humain presents itself, manifests itself in a number of ways, which we can reduce to two principal aspects: the physiological aspect and the psychological aspect. The amoeba and the elephant, the oak and the raspberry vine, the bat and the rhinoceros are likewise different aspects of the terrestrial flora and fauna. [1.15]