Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly
Quotes by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly
-
He had a reputation in society as a man with a lively wit, whose gaiety was pleasant and formidable – which all gaiety must be in a society which would despise you if, while amusing it, you did not make it tremble a little. (A Woman's Vengeance)
Read quote
-
If writers only dared to dare, a Suetonius or a Tacitus of the Novel could exist, for the Novel is essentially the history of manners, turned into a story and a play, as is History itself often enough. And there is no other difference than this: that the one, the Novel, cloaks its manners under the disguise of invented characters, while the other, History, provides names and addresses. Only, the Novel probes much deeper than history. It has an ideal, and History has none; it is limited by reality. The Novel also holds the stage much longer. (A Woman's Vengeance)
Read quote
-
(it was) beautiful, like so many senseless things.
Read quote
-
Beauty is single. Only ugliness is multiple, and even then its multiplicity is soon exhausted.
Read quote
-
She was one of those women of good family who no longer exist, elegant, distinguished, and haughty, whose pallor and thinness seem to say, 'I am conquered by the era, like all my breed. I am dying, but I despise you,' and - devil take me! - plebeian as I am, and though it is not very philosophical , I cannot help finding that beautiful.
Read quote
-
The Devil teaches women what they are – or they would teach it to the Devil if he did not know.
Read quote
-
In Paris, where raillery is so quick to throw emotion out the window, silence, in a roomful of clever people after a story, is the most flattering of all marks of success
Read quote
-
They had...finished their lives before their death – which is not always the end of life and often comes long before the end.
Read quote
-
For in Paris, whenever God puts a pretty woman there (the streets), the Devil, in reply, immediately puts a fool to keep her.
Read quote
-
Beauty is single. Only ugliness is multiple, and even then its multiplicity is soon exhausted.
Read quote
-
In Paris, where raillery is so quick to throw emotion out the window, silence, in a roomful of clever people after a story, is the most flattering of all marks of success
Read quote
-
The Devil teaches women what they are – or they would teach it to the Devil if he did not know.
Read quote
-
If writers only dared to dare, a Suetonius or a Tacitus of the Novel could exist, for the Novel is essentially the history of manners, turned into a story and a play, as is History itself often enough. And there is no other difference than this: that the one, the Novel, cloaks its manners under the disguise of invented characters, while the other, History, provides names and addresses. Only, the Novel probes much deeper than history. It has an ideal, and History has none; it is limited by reality. The Novel also holds the stage much longer. (A Woman's Vengeance)
Read quote
-
She was one of those women of good family who no longer exist, elegant, distinguished, and haughty, whose pallor and thinness seem to say, 'I am conquered by the era, like all my breed. I am dying, but I despise you,' and - devil take me! - plebeian as I am, and though it is not very philosophical , I cannot help finding that beautiful.
Read quote
-
For in Paris, whenever God puts a pretty woman there (the streets), the Devil, in reply, immediately puts a fool to keep her.
Read quote
-
(it was) beautiful, like so many senseless things.
Read quote
-
They had...finished their lives before their death – which is not always the end of life and often comes long before the end.
Read quote
-
He had a reputation in society as a man with a lively wit, whose gaiety was pleasant and formidable – which all gaiety must be in a society which would despise you if, while amusing it, you did not make it tremble a little. (A Woman's Vengeance)
Read quote
-
The artist's morality lies in the force and truth of his description.
Read quote
-
Passions are less mischievous than boredom, for passions tend to diminish, boredom to increase.
Read quote