Top quotes by Guy de Maupassant

The simplest of women are wonderful liars who can extricate themselves from the most difficult dilemmas with a skill bordering on genius. Votes: 19

It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both. Votes: 17

The essence of life is the smile of round female bottoms, under the shadow of cosmic boredom. Votes: 16

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. Votes: 10

A human being - what is a human being? Everything and nothing. Through the power of thought it can mirror everything it experiences. Through memory and knowledge it becomes a microcosm, carrying the world within itself. A mirror of things, a mirror of facts. Each human being becomes a little universe within the universe! Votes: 10

Yes, this is the only good thing in life: love! To hold a woman you love in your arms! That is the ultimate in human happiness. Votes: 10

Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck. Votes: 9

I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free; without shackles of any kind, without care, without preoccupation, without thought even of to-morrow. You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your fancy. Votes: 8

Ale, not beer, in a pewter mug was comme il faut, the only thing for a gentleman of letters, worthy of the name, to drink. Votes: 7

Killing is decreed by law but nature loves eternal youth. Whatever she does, however unconscious and unfeeling the act, she seems to cry out: 'Quick! Quick! Quick!' And the more she destroys, the more she is renewed. Votes: 6

I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt. Votes: 6

There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. Votes: 5

There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress. Votes: 5

Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but are slightly touched by madness. Votes: 5

The public is composed of numerous groups whose cry to us writers is: 'Comfort me.' 'Amuse me.' 'Touch my sympathies.' 'Make me sad.' 'Make me dream.' 'Make me laugh.' 'Make me shiver.' 'Make me weep.' 'Make me think.' Votes: 5

History, that excitable and unreliable old lady. Votes: 5

In the East men know panic, but they do not know what fright is. Votes: 5

Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare. Votes: 4

Sometimes our thoughts turn back toward a corner in a forest, or the end of a bank, or an orchard powdered with flowers, seen but a single time on some happy day, yet remaining in our hearts and leaving in soul and body an unappeased desire which is not to be forgotten, a feeling that we have just rubbed elbows with happiness. Votes: 4

If I could, I would stop the passage of time. But hour follows on hour, minute on minute, each second robbing me of a morsel of myself for the nothing of tomorrow. I shall never experience this moment again. Votes: 4

Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist. Votes: 3

It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living. Votes: 3

She realized for the first time that two people can never reach each others deepest feelings and instincts, that they spend their lives side by side, linked it may be, but not mingled, and that each one's inmost being must go through life eternally alone. Votes: 2

Night was a very different matter. It was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush against appalling things and feel roaming and prowling around a strange, mysterious horror. Votes: 2

The secret is not to betray your ignorance. Just maneuver, avoid the quicksands and obstacles, and the rest can be found in a dictionary. Votes: 2

Of all the passions, the only one that seems respectable to me is the passion for food Votes: 2

The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death. Votes: 2

Entre pauvres gens, faut bien qu'on s'aide C'est les grands qui font la guerre. Votes: 1

What do you want? he then asked her. And with clenched teeth, and trembling with anger, she replied: I want--I want you to marry me, as you promised. But he only laughed and replied: Oh! if a man were to marry all the girls with whom he has made a slip, he would have more than enough to do. Votes: 1

The bed comprehends our whole life, for we were born in it, we live in it, and we shall die in it Votes: 1

I told myself 'Everything is a being! The shout that passes into the air is an entity like an animal, since it is born, produces a movement, and is again transformed, in order to die. So the fearful mind that believes in incorporeal beings is not wrong. What are they? Votes: 0

Monsieur Lerebour was short, round and jovial, with the joviality of a shopkeeper who liked to do himself well. His wife, who was thin, self-willed and perpetually discontented, had still not succeeded in overcoming her husband's good humour. Votes: 0

The great artists are those who impose their personal vision upon humanity. Votes: 0

Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all. Votes: 0

But he asked himself now if he would not be disobeying God. And does not God permit love, since He surrounds it with such visible splendor? Votes: 0

One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death. Votes: 0

It is the encounters with people that make life worth living. Votes: 0

You've never lived until you've almost died. For those who have fought for it, life has a flavor the protected shall never know. Votes: 0

She was the temptress who had ensnared the first man, and who still continued her work at damnation; she was the being who is feeble, dangerous, mysteriously troubling. And even more than her body of perdition, he hated her loving soul. Votes: 0

...A strange art "“ music "“ the most poetic and precise of all the arts, vague as a dream and precise as algebra. Votes: 0

A lawful kiss is never worth as much as a stolen one. Votes: 0

A man forced to spend his life without ever having the right, without ever finding the time, to shut himself up all alone, no matter where, to think, to reflect, to work, to dream? Ah! my dear boy, a key, the key of a door which one can lock this is happiness, mark you, the only happiness! Votes: 0

A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption. Votes: 0

Abstinence is the worst form of perversion. Votes: 0

Anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of enemies. Votes: 0

breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die. Votes: 0

Broad daylight does not encourage the apprehension of horror. Votes: 0

Champagne... the wine of kings, the king of wines Votes: 0

Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful. Votes: 0

How weak our mind is; how quickly it is terrified and unbalanced as soon as we are confronted with a small, incomprehensible fact. Instead of dismissing the problem with: "We do not understand because we cannot find the cause," we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers. Votes: 0

I go to bed, and I wait for sleep as a man might wait for the executioner. I wait for its coming with dread, and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes, until the moment when I suddenly fall asleep, as a man throws himself into a pool of stagnant water in order to drown. I do not feel this perfidious sleep coming over me as I used to, but a sleep which is close to me and watching me, which is going to seize me by the head, to close my eyes and annihilate me. Votes: 0

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing Votes: 0

I have seen mad people, and I have known some who were quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point. They could speak clearly, readily, profoundly on everything; till their thoughts were caught in the breakers of their delusions and went to pieces there, were dispersed and swamped in that furious and terrible sea of fogs and squalls which is called MADNESS. Votes: 0

I love the night passionately. I love it as I love my country, or my mistress, with an instinctive, deep, and unshakeable love. I love it with all my senses: I love to see it, I love to breathe it in, I love to open my ears to its silence, I love my whole body to be caressed by its blackness. Skylarks sing in the sunshine, the blue sky, the warm air, in the fresh morning light. The owl flies by night, a dark shadow passing through the darkness; he hoots his sinister, quivering hoot, as though he delights in the intoxicating black immensity of space. Votes: 0

I love the night passionately... I love it with all my senses: I love to see it, I love to breathe it in, I love to open my ears to its silence, I love my whole body to be caressed by its blackness... Votes: 0

I said, 'If other beings besides us exist on Earth, why didn't we meet them a long time ago? Votes: 0

I told myself: 'I am surrounded by unknown things.' I imagined man without ears, suspecting the existence of sound as we suspect so many hidden mysteries, man noting acoustic phenomena whose nature and provenance he cannot determine. And I grew afraid of everything around me "“ afraid of the air, afraid of the night. From the moment we can know almost nothing, and from the moment that everything is limitless, what remains? Does emptiness actually not exist? What does exist in this apparent emptiness? Votes: 0

In fact living is dying. Votes: 0

Legitimized love always despises its easygoing brother. Votes: 0

Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're always looking towards the top and you feel happy, but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death at the end of it all. It's slow going up and quick going down. Votes: 0

Love always has its price, come whence it may. Votes: 0

Love is always love, come whence it may. A heart that beats at your approach, an eye that weeps when you go away are things so rare, so sweet, so precious that they must never be despised. Votes: 0

Military men are the scourges of the world. Votes: 0

She was a sweet girl but not really pretty, a rough sketch of a woman with a little of everything in her, one of those silhouettes which artists draw in three strokes on the tablecloth in a café after dinner, between a glass of brandy and a cigarette. Nature sometimes turns out creatures like that. Votes: 0

Since governments take the right of death over their people, it is not astonishing if the people should sometimes take the right of death over governments. Votes: 0

Solitude is indeed dangerous for a working intelligence. We need to have around us people who think and speak. When we are alone for a long time we people the void with phantoms Votes: 0

The English have only three sauces - a white one, a brown one and a yellow one, and none of them have any flavor whatever. Votes: 0

The glasses were half full, which meant that the guests were completely so Votes: 0

The kiss itself is immortal. It travels from lip to lip, century to century, from age to age. Men and women garner these kisses, offer them to others and then die in turn. Votes: 0

The only certainty is death. Votes: 0

There are in France some fifty thousand young men of good birth and fairly well off who are encouraged to live a life of complete idleness. They must either cease to exist or must come to see that there can be no happiness, no health even, without regular daily labor of some sort ... The need of work is in me. Votes: 0

There are some delightful places in this world which have a sensual charm for the eyes. One loves them with a physical love. We people who are attracted by the countryside cherish fond memories of certain springs, certain woods, certain ponds, certain hills, which have become familiar sights and can touch our hearts like happy events. Sometimes indeed the memory goes back towards a forest glade, or a spot on a river bank or an orchard in blossom, glimpsed only once on a happy day, but preserved in our heart. Votes: 0

Those men, those of former times, had soul and eyes that in no way resemble ours, and in their veins, along with their blood, flowed something that has disappeared: love and admiration for the Beautiful. Votes: 0

To avoid each other, their eyes had developed an amazing mobility with all the cunning of enemies fearful of meeting each other head on. Votes: 0

To contest an author's right to create a poetic or realistic work is to want to force him to change his temperament, challenge his originality, refuse to allow him to use the eye and the intelligence nature has given him. Votes: 0

To lie about a far country is easy Votes: 0

To love very much is to love inadequately; we love-that is all. Love cannot be modified without being nullified. Love is a short word but it contains everything. Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe the air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us. Love is not a word; it is a wordless state indicated by four letters. Votes: 0

Travel, like dreams, is a door that opens from the real world into a world that is yet to be discovered Votes: 0

War! When I but think of this word, I feel bewildered, as though they were speaking to me of sorcery, of the Inquisition, of a distant, finished, abominable, monstrous, unnatural thing. When they speak to us of cannibals, we smile proudly, as we proclaim our superiority to these savages. Who are the real savages? Those who struggle in order to eat those whom they vanquish, or those who struggle merely to kill? Votes: 0

We are accustomed to use our eyes only with the memory of what other people before us have thought about the object we are looking at. Votes: 0

We breathe love as we breathe air; we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us. Votes: 0

We breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work and then die! The end of life is death. What do you long for? Love? A few kisses and you will be powerless. Money? What for? To gratify your desires. Glory? What coems after it all? Death! Death alone is certain. Votes: 0

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs... of our barbarous ancestors. Votes: 0

Were a man to spend only one day in Sicily and ask, "What must one see?" I would answer him without hesitation, "Taormina." It is only a landscape, but a landscape where you find everything on earth that seems made to seduce the eyes, the mind and the imagination. Votes: 0

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty. Votes: 0

Whatever you want to say, there is only one word to express it, only one verb to give it movement, only one adjective to qualify it. Votes: 0

Whether we are describing a king, an assassin, a thief, an honest man, a prostitute, a nun, a young girl, or a stallholder in a market, it is always ourselves that we are describing. Votes: 0

You must render: never report. Votes: 0

You'll find that my coquetry is quite impartial, which allows me to keep my friends. Votes: 0

You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government. Votes: 0

And taking her friend's hand, she put it on her breast, on that firm round covering of a woman's heart which the male often finds so satisfying that he makes no attempt to find what lies beneath it. Votes: 0