“It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying.”

“What we have not had to decipher, to elucidate by our own efforts, what was clear before we looked at it, is not ours. From ourselves comes only that which we drag forth from the obscurity which lies within us, that which to others is unknown.”

“With the girls, on the other hand, if the pleasure which I enjoyed was selfish, at least it was not based on the lie which seeks to make us believe that we are not irremediably alone and prevents us from admitting that, when we chat, it is no longer we who speak, that we are fashioning ourselves then in the likeness of other people and not of a self that differs from them.”

“The bonds between ourselves and another person exists only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.”

“We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.”

“But sometimes the future is latent in us without our knowing it, and our supposedly lying words foreshadow an imminent reality.”

“Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.”