It is the reflection of my face. Often in these lost days I study it: I can understand nothing of this face. The faces of others have some sense, some direction. Not mine. I cannot even decide whether it is handsome or ugly. I think it is ugly because I have been told so. But it doesn't strike me. At heart, I am even shocked that anyone can attribute qualities of this kind to it, as if you called a clod of earth or a block of stone beautiful or ugly.

Man lives in the midst of images. Literature offers him a critical image of himself.

A pale reflection of myself wavers in my consciousness...and suddenly the “I” pales, pales, and fades out.

Ideas come in pairs and they contradict one another; their opposition is the principal engine of reflection.