Great Throughts Treasury

"The natural law does not exist... There is a law that when there is a law to prohibit doing a thing under threat of punishment. Before there was the law, there's natural that the strength of the lion, or the need of the being who is hungry, who is cold, the need in a word ... No, the people who do not honor the world who are the villains who have been lucky enough not to be caught in the act."

"The nervous fluid in man is consumed by the brain; in women, by the heart."

"The only way of touching a heart is to wound it"

"The ordinary procedure of the nineteenth century is that when a powerful and noble personage encounters a man of feeling, he kills, exiles, imprisons or so humiliates him that the other, like a fool, dies of grief."

"The people love each other, synchronize, do not try."

"The pleasures and the cares of the luckiest ambition, even of limitless power, are nothing next to the intimate happiness that tenderness and love give. I am a man before being a prince, and when I have the good fortune to be in love my mistress addresses a man and not a prince."

"The sight of anything extremely beautiful, in nature or in art, brings back the memory of what one loves, with the speed of lightning."

"The reality seemed flat and dirty; is understandable not to like to look at but then neither is it lawful to judge you."

"The suspicion that a rival is loved is painful enough already, but to have the love that he inspires in her confessed to one in detail by the woman whom one adores is without doubt the acme of suffering."

"The taste for freedom, the fashion and cult of happiness of the majority that the nineteenth century is infatuated with, was only a heresy in his eyes that would pass like others."

"The young peasant saw nothing between him and the most heroic actions, the lack of opportunity."

"These follies surprise you without you win."

"This mania of the mothers of the period, to be constantly in pursuit of a son-in-law."

"This religion takes away the courage of thinking of unusual things and prohibits self-examination above all as the most egregious of sins. It is one step away from Protestantism."

"Thought the passions, as we believe the lottery: some deceit and happiness sought by fools."

"To write a book is to risk being shot at in public."

"Wasted hundreds of louis and prosecute hundreds of francs. The rich who are looking for fun and no wires proud gain in business."

"We looked beautiful landscapes with delicate sensitivity; the only reason I voyaged. The landscapes were like a bow playing on my soul, namely those that do not quote anyone."

"Well sir, a novel is a mirror walking on a highway."

"Went to bed -Here Is it that women, repeated M. de Renal, there is always something to upset these complicated machines. And he"

"Were I to buy this life of pleasure and this only chance at happiness with a few little dangers, where would be the harm? And wouldn?t it still be fortunate to find a weak excuse to give her proof of my love?"

"What is the use of a love that makes one yawn? One might as well take to religion."

"When someone performs crimes, should be at least that it is done with pleasure; it is only good to them, and only thus can be somewhat justified."

"Who would tell me that I would find pleasure mourn! That I would care for precisely who shows me I'm a fool!"

"Why does he not know how to select servants? The ordinary procedure of the nineteenth century is that when a powerful and noble personage encounters a man of feeling, he kills, exiles, imprisons or so humiliates him that the other, like a fool, dies of grief."

"Why not make an end of it all? he asked himself. "Why this obstinate resistance to the fate that is crushing me? It is all very well my forming what are apparently the most reasonable forms of conduct, my life is a succession of griefs and bitter feelings. This month is no better than the last; this year is no better than last year. Why this obstinate determination to go on living? Can I be wanting in firmness? What is death?" he asked himself, opening his case of pistols and examining them. "A very small matter, when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it.""

"With the love I feel like two steps from me there is a vast and beyond all my expectations happiness, which depends only on a word, a smile."

"Yes, sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a path beaten by many people. He will be reflected in the eye when the blue sky blue when Mocirlelor mud track. And the one who bears the burden mirror behind you will blame it's immoral! Mirror's look mud, and I blamed the mirror! Better you blame the road that lies mud and more still on the road inspector who tolerates lying to form water and mud."

"Your water does not refresh me, said the thirsty genie. Yet it is the coolest well in all the Diar Bekir."