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QUOTES AND IMAGES: THE FRENCH IMMORTALS



THE FRENCH IMMORTALS

CONTENTS

THE INK STAIN Rene Bazin JACQUELINE Therese Bentzon (Mme. Blanc) GERFAUT Charles de Bernard COSMOPOLIS Paul Bourget PRINCE ZILAH Jules Caretie A ROMANCE OF YOUTH Francois Coppee FROMONT AND RISLER Alphonse Daudet CINQ MARS Alfred de Vigny M.M. AND BEBE Gustave Droz MONSIEUR DE CAMORS Octave Feuillet THE RED LILY Anatole France ABBE CONSTANTIN Ludovic Halevey CHRYSANTHEME Pierre Loti CONSCIENCE Hector Malot ZIBELINE Phillipe de Massa THE CHILD OF A CENTURY Alfred de Musset SERGE PANINE George Ohnet AN "ATTIC" PHILOSOPHER Emile Souvestre A WOODLAND QUEEN Andre Theuriet



THE INK STAIN, By Rene Bazin



All that a name is to a street— its honor, its spouse

Came not in single spies, but in battalions

Distrust first impulse

Felix culpa

Happy men don't need company

Hard that one can not live one's life over twice

He always loved to pass for being overwhelmed with work

I don't call that fishing

If trouble awaits us, hope will steal us a happy hour or two

Lends—I should say gives

Men forget sooner

Natural only when alone, and talk well only to themselves

Obstacles are the salt of all our joys

One doesn't offer apologies to a man in his wrath

People meeting to "have it out" usually say nothing at first

Silence, alas! is not the reproof of kings alone

Skilful actor, who apes all the emotions while feeling none

Sorrows shrink into insignificance as the horizon broadens

Surprise goes for so much in what we admire

The very smell of books is improving

The looks of the young are always full of the future

There are some blunders that are lucky; but you can't tell

To be your own guide doubles your pleasure

You a law student, while our farmers are in want of hands

You must always first get the tobacco to burn evenly

You ask Life for certainties, as if she had any to give you



JACQUELINE, By Therese Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)



A familiarity which, had he known it, was not flattering

A mother's geese are always swans

As we grow older we lay aside harsh judgments and sharp words

Bathers, who exhibited themselves in all degrees of ugliness

Blow which annihilates our supreme illusion

Death is not that last sleep

Fool (there is no cure for that infirmity)

Fred's verses were not good, but they were full of dejection

Great interval between a dream and its execution

Hang out the bush, but keep no tavern

His sleeplessness was not the insomnia of genius

Importance in this world are as easily swept away as the sand

Music—so often dangerous to married happiness

Natural longing, that we all have, to know the worst

Notion of her husband's having an opinion of his own

Old women—at least thirty years old!

Pride supplies some sufferers with necessary courage

Seemed to enjoy themselves, or made believe they did

Seldom troubled himself to please any one he did not care for

Small women ought not to grow stout

Sympathetic listening, never having herself anything to say

The bandage love ties over the eyes of men

The worst husband is always better than none

This unending warfare we call love

Unwilling to leave him to the repose he needed

Waste all that upon a thing that nobody will ever look at

Women who are thirty-five should never weep



GERFAUT, By Charles de Bernard



Antipathy for her husband bordering upon aversion

Attractions that difficulties give to pleasure

Attractive abyss of drunkenness

Consented to become a wife so as not to remain a maiden

Despotic tone which a woman assumes when sure of her empire

Evident that the man was above his costume; a rare thing!

I believed it all; one is so happy to believe!

It is a terrible step for a woman to take, from No to Yes

Lady who requires urging, although she is dying to sing

Let them laugh that win!

Let ultra-modesty destroy poetry

Love is a fire whose heat dies out for want of fuel

Mania for fearing that she may be compromised

Material in you to make one of Cooper's redskins

Misfortunes never come single

No woman is unattainable, except when she loves another

Obstinacy of drunkenness

Recourse to concessions is often as fatal to women as to kings

Regards his happiness as a proof of superiority

She said yes, so as not to say no

These are things that one admits only to himself

Those whom they most amuse are those who are best worth amusing

Topics that occupy people who meet for the first time

Trying to conceal by a smile (a blush)

When one speaks of the devil he appears

Wiped his nose behind his hat, like a well-bred orator

You are playing 'who loses wins!'



COSMOPOLIS, By Paul Bourget



Conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity

Despotism natural to puissant personalities

Egyptian tobacco, mixed with opium and saltpetre

Follow their thoughts instead of heeding objects

Has as much sense as the handle of a basket

Have never known in the morning what I would do in the evening

I no longer love you

Imagine what it would be never to have been born

Mediocre sensibility

Melancholy problem of the birth and death of love

Mobile and complaisant conscience had already forgiven himself

No flies enter a closed mouth

Not an excuse, but an explanation of your conduct

One of those trustful men who did not judge when they loved

Only one thing infamous in love, and that is a falsehood

Pitiful checker-board of life

Scarcely a shade of gentle condescension

Sufficed him to conceive the plan of a reparation

That suffering which curses but does not pardon

That you can aid them in leading better lives?

The forests have taught man liberty

There is an intelligent man, who never questions his ideas

There is always and everywhere a duty to fulfil

Thinking it better not to lie on minor points

Too prudent to risk or gain much

Walked at the rapid pace characteristic of monomaniacs

Words are nothing; it is the tone in which they are uttered



PRINCE ZILAH, By Jules Claretie



A man's life belongs to his duty, and not to his happiness

All defeats have their geneses

An hour of rest between two ordeals, a smile between two sobs

Anonymous, that velvet mask of scandal-mongers

At every step the reality splashes you with mud

Bullets are not necessarily on the side of the right

Does one ever forget?

Foreigners are more Parisian than the Parisians themselves

History is written, not made.

"I might forgive," said Andras; "but I could not forget"

If well-informed people are to be believe

Insanity is, perhaps, simply the ideal realized

It is so good to know nothing, nothing, nothing

Let the dead past bury its dead!

Life is a tempest

Man who expects nothing of life except its ending

Nervous natures, as prompt to hope as to despair

No answer to make to one who has no right to question me

Not only his last love, but his only love

Nothing ever astonishes me

One of those beings who die, as they have lived, children

Pessimism of to-day sneering at his confidence of yesterday

Playing checkers, that mimic warfare of old men

Poverty brings wrinkles

Sufferer becomes, as it were, enamored of his own agony

Superstition which forbids one to proclaim his happiness

Taken the times as they are

The Hungarian was created on horseback

There were too many discussions, and not enough action

Unable to speak, for each word would have been a sob

What matters it how much we suffer

Why should I read the newspapers?

Willingly seek a new sorrow

Would not be astonished at anything

You suffer? Is fate so just as that



A ROMANCE OF YOUTH, By Francois Coppee



Break in his memory, like a book with several leaves torn out

Dreams, instead of living

Egotists and cowards always have a reason for everything

Eternally condemned to kill each other in order to live

Fortunate enough to keep those one loves

God forgive the timid and the prattler!

Good form consists, above all things, in keeping silent

Happiness exists only by snatches and lasts only a moment

He does not know the miseries of ambition and vanity

He almost regretted her

How sad these old memorics are in the autumn

Inoffensive tree which never had harmed anybody

Intimate friend, whom he has known for about five minutes

It was all delightfully terrible!

Learned that one leaves college almost ignorant

Mild, unpretentious men who let everybody run over them

My good fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure

Never travel when the heart is troubled!

Not more honest than necessary

Now his grief was his wife, and lived with him

Paint from nature

Poor France of Jeanne d'Arc and of Napoleon

Redouble their boasting after each defeat

Society people condemned to hypocrisy and falsehood

Take their levity for heroism

Tediousness seems to ooze out through their bindings

The leaves fall! the leaves fall!

The sincere age when one thinks aloud

Tired smile of those who have not long to live

Trees are like men; there are some that have no luck

Universal suffrage, with its accustomed intelligence

Upon my word, there are no ugly ones (women)

Very young, and was in love with love

Voice of the heart which alone has power to reach the heart

Were certain against all reason

When he sings, it is because he has something to sing about



FROMONT AND RISLER, By Alphonse Daudet



A man may forgive, but he never forgets

Abundant details which he sometimes volunteered

Affectation of indifference

Always smiling condescendingly

Charm of that one day's rest and its solemnity

Clashing knives and forks mark time

Convent of Saint Joseph, four shoes under the bed!

Deeming every sort of occupation beneath him

Dreams of wealth and the disasters that immediately followed

Exaggerated dramatic pantomime

Faces taken by surprise allow their real thoughts to be seen

He fixed the time mentally when he would speak

Little feathers fluttering for an opportunity to fly away

Make for themselves a horizon of the neighboring walls and roofs

No one has ever been able to find out what her thoughts were

Pass half the day in procuring two cakes, worth three sous

She was of those who disdain no compliment

Such artificial enjoyment, such idiotic laughter

Superiority of the man who does nothing over the man who works

Terrible revenge she would take hereafter for her sufferings

The poor must pay for all their enjoyments

The groom isn't handsome, but the bride's as pretty as a picture

Void in her heart, a place made ready for disasters to come

Wiping his forehead ostentatiously

Word "sacrifice," so vague on careless lips

Would have liked him to be blind only so far as he was concerned



CINQ MARS, By Alfred de Vigny



A cat is a very fine animal. It is a drawing-room tiger

A queen's country is where her throne is

Adopted fact is always better composed than the real one

Advantage that a calm temper gives one over men

All that he said, I had already thought

Always the first word which is the most difficult to say

Ambition is the saddest of all hopes

Art is the chosen truth

Artificialities of style of that period

Artistic Truth, more lofty than the True

As Homer says, "smiling under tears"

Assume with others the mien they wore toward him

But how avenge one's self on silence?

Dare now to be silent when I have told you these things

Daylight is detrimental to them

Deny the spirit of self-sacrifice

Difference which I find between Truth in art and the True in fac

Doubt, the greatest misery of love

Friendship exists only in independence and a kind of equality

Happy is he who does not outlive his youth

Hatred of everything which is superior to myself

He did not blush to be a man, and he spoke to men with force

Hermits can not refrain from inquiring what men say of them

History too was a work of art

I have burned all the bridges behind me

In pitying me he forgot himself

In every age we laugh at the costume of our fathers

In times like these we must see all and say all

It is not now what it used to be

It is too true that virtue also has its blush

Lofty ideal of woman and of love

Men are weak, and there are things which women must accomplish

Money is not a common thing between gentlemen like you and me

Monsieur, I know that I have lived too long

Neither idealist nor realist

Never interfered in what did not concern him

No writer had more dislike of mere pedantry

Offices will end by rendering great names vile

Princes ought never to be struck, except on the head

Princesses ceded like a town, and must not even weep

Principle that art implied selection

Recommended a scrupulous observance of nature

Remedy infallible against the plague and against reserve

Reproaches are useless and cruel if the evil is done

Should be punished for not having known how to punish

So strongly does force impose upon men

Tears for the future

The great leveller has swung a long scythe over France

The most in favor will be the soonest abandoned by him

The usual remarks prompted by imbecility on such occasions

These ideas may serve as opium to produce a calm

They tremble while they threaten

They have believed me incapable because I was kind

They loved not as you love, eh?

This popular favor is a cup one must drink

This was the Dauphin, afterward Louis XIV

True talent paints life rather than the living

Truth, I here venture to distinguish from that of the True

Urbain Grandier

What use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example

Woman is more bitter than death, and her arms are like chains

Yes, we are in the way here



M.M. AND BEBE, By Gustave Droz



A ripe husband, ready to fall from the tree

Affection is catching

All babies are round, yielding, weak, timid, and soft

And I shall say 'damn it,' for I shall then be grown up

Answer "No," but with a little kiss which means "Yes"

As regards love, intention and deed are the same

But she thinks she is affording you pleasure

Clumsily, blew his nose, to the great relief of his two arms

Do not seek too much

Emotion when one does not share it

First impression is based upon a number of trifles

He Would Have Been Forty Now

Hearty laughter which men affect to assist digestion

How many things have not people been proud of

How rich we find ourselves when we rummage in old drawers

Husband who loves you and eats off the same plate is better

I would give two summers for a single autumn

I do not accept the hypothesis of a world made for us

I came here for that express purpose

I am not wandering through life, I am marching on

Ignorant of everything, undesirous of learning anything

In his future arrange laurels for a little crown for your own

It (science) dreams, too; it supposes

It is silly to blush under certain circumstances

Learned to love others by embracing their own children

Life is not so sweet for us to risk ourselves in it singlehanded

Love in marriage is, as a rule, too much at his ease

Man is but one of the links of an immense chain

Rather do not give—make yourself sought after

Reckon yourself happy if in your husband you find a lover

Recollection of past dangers to increase the present joy

Respect him so that he may respect you

Shelter himself in the arms of the weak and recover courage

Sometimes like to deck the future in the garments of the past

The heart requires gradual changes

The future that is rent away

The recollection of that moment lasts for a lifetime

The future promises, it is the present that pays

Their love requires a return

There are pious falsehoods which the Church excuses

Ties that unite children to parents are unloosed

Ties which unite parents to children are broken

To be able to smoke a cigar without being sick

To love is a great deal—To know how to love is everything

We are simple to this degree, that we do not think we are

When time has softened your grief

Why mankind has chosen to call marriage a man-trap



MONSIEUR DE CAMORS, By Octave Feuillet



A man never should kneel unless sure of rising a conqueror

A defensive attitude is never agreeable to a man

Bad to fear the opinion of people one despises

Believing that it is for virtue's sake alone such men love them

Camors refused, hesitated, made objections, and consented

Confounding progress with discord, liberty with license

Contempt for men is the beginning of wisdom

Cried out, with the blunt candor of his age

Dangers of liberty outweighed its benefits

Demanded of him imperatively—the time of day

Determined to cultivate ability rather than scrupulousness

Disenchantment which follows possession

Do not get angry. Rarely laugh, and never weep

Every one is the best judge of his own affairs

Every road leads to Rome—and one as surely as another

Every cause that is in antagonism with its age commits suicide

God—or no principles!

Have not that pleasure, it is useless to incur the penalties

He is charming, for one always feels in danger near him

Inconstancy of heart is the special attribute of man

Intemperance of her zeal and the acrimony of her bigotry

Knew her danger, and, unlike most of them, she did not love it

Man, if he will it, need not grow old: the lion must

Never can make revolutions with gloves on

Once an excellent remedy, is a detestable regimen

One of those pious persons who always think evil

Pleasures of an independent code of morals

Police regulations known as religion

Principles alone, without faith in some higher sanction

Property of all who are strong enough to stand it

Put herself on good terms with God, in case He should exist

'Semel insanivimus omnes.' (every one has his madness)

Slip forth from the common herd, my son, think for yourself

Suspicion that he is a feeble human creature after all!

There will be no more belief in Christ than in Jupiter

Ties that become duties where we only sought pleasures

Truth is easily found. I shall read all the newspapers

Two persons who desired neither to remember nor to forget

Whether in this world one must be a fanatic or nothing

Whole world of politics and religion rushed to extremes

With the habit of thinking, had not lost the habit of laughing

You can not make an omelette without first breaking the eggs



THE RED LILY, By Anatole France



A woman is frank when she does not lie uselessly

A hero must be human. Napoleon was human

Anti-Semitism is making fearful progress everywhere

Brilliancy of a fortune too new

Curious to know her face of that day

Disappointed her to escape the danger she had feared

Do you think that people have not talked about us?

Does not wish one to treat it with either timidity or brutality

Does one ever possess what one loves?

Each had regained freedom, but he did not like to be alone

Each was moved with self-pity

Everybody knows about that

Fringe which makes an unlovely border to the city

Gave value to her affability by not squandering it

He could not imagine that often words are the same as actions

He studied until the last moment

He is not intelligent enough to doubt

He does not bear ill-will to those whom he persecutes

He knew now the divine malady of love

Her husband had become quite bearable

His habit of pleasing had prolonged his youth

(Housemaid) is trained to respect my disorder

I love myself because you love me

I can forget you only when I am with you

I wished to spoil our past

I feel in them (churches) the grandeur of nothingness

I have to pay for the happiness you give me

I gave myself to him because he loved me

I haven't a taste, I have tastes

I have known things which I know no more

I do not desire your friendship

Ideas they think superior to love— faith, habits, interests

Immobility of time

Impatient at praise which was not destined for himself

Incapable of conceiving that one might talk without an object

It was torture for her not to be able to rejoin him

It is an error to be in the right too soon

It was too late: she did not wish to win

Jealous without having the right to be jealous

Kisses and caresses are the effort of a delightful despair

Knew that life is not worth so much anxiety nor so much hope

Laughing in every wrinkle of his face

Learn to live without desire

Let us give to men irony and pity as witnesses and judges

Life as a whole is too vast and too remote

Life is made up of just such trifles

Life is not a great thing

Little that we can do when we are powerful

Love is a soft and terrible force, more powerful than beauty

Love was only a brief intoxication

Lovers never separate kindly

Made life give all it could yield

Magnificent air of those beggars of whom small towns are proud

Miserable beings who contribute to the grandeur of the past

Nobody troubled himself about that originality

None but fools resisted the current

Not everything is known, but everything is said

Nothing is so legitimate, so human, as to deceive pain

One would think that the wind would put them out: the stars

One who first thought of pasting a canvas on a panel

One is never kind when one is in love

One should never leave the one whom one loves

Picturesquely ugly

Recesses of her mind which she preferred not to open

Relatives whom she did not know and who irritated her

Seemed to him that men were grains in a coffee-mill

She pleased society by appearing to find pleasure in it

She is happy, since she likes to remember

Should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one

Simple people who doubt neither themselves nor others

Since she was in love, she had lost prudence

So well satisfied with his reply that he repeated it twice

Superior men sometimes lack cleverness

That sort of cold charity which is called altruism

That if we live the reason is that we hope

That absurd and generous fury for ownership

The most radical breviary of scepticism since Montaigne

The door of one's room opens on the infinite

The past is the only human reality— Everything that is, is past

The one whom you will love and who will love you will harm you

The violent pleasure of losing

The discouragement which the irreparable gives

The real support of a government is the Opposition

The politician never should be in advance of circumstances

There is nothing good except to ignore and to forget

There are many grand and strong things which you do not feel

They are the coffin saying: 'I am the cradle'

To be beautiful, must a woman have that thin form

Trying to make Therese admire what she did not know

Umbrellas, like black turtles under the watery skies

Unfortunate creature who is the plaything of life

Was I not warned enough of the sadness of everything?

We are too happy; we are robbing life

What will be the use of having tormented ourselves in this world

Whether they know or do not know, they talk

Women do not always confess it, but it is always their fault

You must take me with my own soul!



ABBE CONSTANTIN, By Ludovic Halevey



Ancient pillars of stone, embrowned and gnawed by time

And they are shoulders which ought to be seen

Believing themselves irresistible

But she will give me nothing but money

Duty, simply accepted and simply discharged

Frenchman has only one real luxury—his revolutions

God may have sent him to purgatory just for form's sake

Great difference between dearly and very much

Had not told all—one never does tell all

He led the brilliant and miserable existence of the unoccupied

If there is one! (a paradise)

In order to make money, the first thing is to have no need of it

Love and tranquillity seldom dwell at peace in the same heart

Never foolish to spend money. The folly lies in keeping it

Often been compared to Eugene Sue, but his touch is lighter

One half of his life belonged to the poor

One may think of marrying, but one ought not to try to marry

Succeeded in wearying him by her importunities and tenderness

The women have enough religion for the men

The history of good people is often monotonous or painful

To learn to obey is the only way of learning to command



CHRYSANTHEME, By Pierre Loti



Ah! the natural perversity of inanimate things

Contemptuous pity, both for my suspicions and the cause of them

Dull hours spent in idle and diffuse conversation

Efforts to arrange matters we succeed often only in disarranging

Found nothing that answered to my indefinable expectations

Habit turns into a makeshift of attachment

I know not what lost home that I have failed to find

Irritating laugh which is peculiar to Japan

Japanese habit of expressing myself with excessive politeness

Ordinary, trivial, every-day objects

Prayers swallowed like pills by invalids at a distance

Seeking for a change which can no longer be found

Trees, dwarfed by a Japanese process

When the inattentive spirits are not listening

Which I should find amusing in any one else,—any one I loved



CONSCIENCE, By Hector Malot



As ignorant as a schoolmaster

As free from prejudices as one may be, one always retains a few

Confidence in one's self is strength, but it is also weakness

Conscience is a bad weighing-machine

Conscience is only an affair of environment and of education

Find it more easy to make myself feared than loved

For the rest of his life he would be the prisoner of his crime

Force, which is the last word of the philosophy of life

He did not sleep, so much the better! He would work more

I believed in the virtue of work, and look at me!

In his eyes everything was decided by luck

Intelligent persons have no remorse

It is the first crime that costs

It is only those who own something who worry about the price

Leant—and when I did not lose my friends I lost my money

Leisure must be had for light reading, and even more for love

Looking for a needle in a bundle of hay

Neither so simple nor so easy as they at first appeared

One does not judge those whom one loves

People whose principle was never to pay a doctor

Power to work, that was never disturbed or weakened by anything

Reason before the deed, and not after

Repeated and explained what he had already said and explained

She could not bear contempt

The strong walk alone because they need no one

We are so unhappy that our souls are weak against joy

We weep, we do not complain

Will not admit that conscience is the proper guide of our action

You love me, therefore you do not know me



ZIBELINE, By Phillipe de Massa



All that was illogical in our social code

Ambiguity has no place, nor has compromise

But if this is our supreme farewell, do not tell me so!

Chain so light yesterday, so heavy to-day

Every man is his own master in his choice of liaisons

If I do not give all I give nothing

Indulgence of which they stand in need themselves

Life goes on, and that is less gay than the stories

Men admired her; the women sought some point to criticise

Only a man, wavering and changeable

Ostensibly you sit at the feast without paying the cost

Paris has become like a little country town in its gossip

The night brings counsel

Their Christian charity did not extend so far as that

There are mountains that we never climb but once

You are in a conquered country, which is still more dangerous



THE CHILD OF A CENTURY, By Alfred de Musset



A terrible danger lurks in the knowledge of what is possible

Accustomed to call its disguise virtue

Adieu, my son, I love you and I die

All philosophy is akin to atheism

All that is not life, it is the noise of life

And when love is sure of itself and knows response

Because you weep, you fondly imagine yourself innocent

Become corrupt, and you will cease to suffer

Began to forget my own sorrow in my sympathy for her

Beware of disgust, it is an incurable evil

Can any one prevent a gossip

Cold silence, that negative force

Contrive to use proud disdain as a shield

Death is more to be desired than a living distaste for life

Despair of a man sick of life, or the whim of a spoiled child

Do they think they have invented what they see

Each one knows what the other is about to say

Fool who destroys his own happiness

Force itself, that mistress of the world

Funeral processions are no longer permitted

Galileo struck the earth, crying: "Nevertheless it moves!"

Good and bad days succeeded each other almost regularly

Great sorrows neither accuse nor blaspheme—they listen

Grief itself was for her but a means of seducing

Happiness of being pursued

He who is loved by a beautiful woman is sheltered from every blow

He lives only in the body

How much they desire to be loved who say they love no more

Human weakness seeks association

I can not be near you and separated from you at the same moment

I can not love her, I can not love another

I boasted of being worse than I really was

I neither love nor esteem sadness

I do not intend either to boast or abase myself

Ignorance into which the Greek clergy plunged the laity

In what do you believe?

Indignation can solace grief and restore happiness

Is he a dwarf or a giant

Is it not enough to have lived?

It is a pity that you must seek pastimes

Make a shroud of your virtue in which to bury your crimes

Man who suffers wishes to make her whom he loves suffer

Men doubted everything: the young men denied everything

No longer esteemed her highly enough to be jealous of her

Of all the sisters of love, the most beautiful is pity

Perfection does not exist

Pure caprice that I myself mistook for a flash of reason

Quarrel had been, so to speak, less sad than our reconciliation

Reading the Memoirs of Constant

Resorted to exaggeration in order to appear original

Sceptic regrets the faith he has lost the power to regain

Seven who are always the same: the first is called hope

She pretended to hope for the best

Sometimes we seem to enjoy unhappiness

"Speak to me of your love," she said, "not of your grief"

St. Augustine

Suffered, and yet took pleasure in it

Suspicions that are ever born anew

Terrible words; I deserve them, but they will kill me

There are two different men in you

Ticking of which (our arteries) can be heard only at night

"Unhappy man!" she cried, "you will never know how to love"

We have had a mass celebrated, and it cost us a large sum

What you take for love is nothing more than desire

What human word will ever express thy slightest caress

When passion sways man, reason follows him weeping and warning

Who has told you that tears can wash away the stains of guilt

Wine suffuses the face as if to prevent shame appearing there

You believe in what is said here below and not in what is done

You play with happiness as a child plays with a rattle

You turn the leaves of dead books

Your great weapon is silence

Youth is to judge of the world from first impressions



SERGE PANINE, By George Ohnet



A man weeps with difficulty before a woman

A uniform is the only garb which can hide poverty honorably

Antagonism to plutocracy and hatred of aristocrats

Because they moved, they thought they were progressing

Cowardly in trouble as he had been insolent in prosperity

Enough to be nobody's unless I belong to him

Even those who do not love her desire to know her

Everywhere was feverish excitement, dissipation, and nullity

Flayed and roasted alive by the critics

Forget a dream and accept a reality

Hard workers are pitiful lovers

He lost his time, his money, his hair, his illusions

He was very unhappy at being misunderstood

Heed that you lose not in dignity what you gain in revenge

I thought the best means of being loved were to deserve it

I don't pay myself with words

Implacable self-interest which is the law of the world

In life it is only nonsense that is common-sense

Is a man ever poor when he has two arms?

Is it by law only that you wish to keep me?

It was a relief when they rose from the table

Men of pleasure remain all their lives mediocre workers

Money troubles are not mortal

My aunt is jealous of me because I am a man of ideas

Negroes, all but monkeys!

Nothing that provokes laughter more than a disappointed lover

One amuses one's self at the risk of dying

Patience, should he encounter a dull page here or there

Romanticism still ferments beneath the varnish of Naturalism

Sacrifice his artistic leanings to popular caprice

Scarcely was one scheme launched when another idea occurred

She would have liked the world to be in mourning

Suffering is a human law; the world is an arena

Talk with me sometimes. You will not chatter trivialities

The guilty will not feel your blows, but the innocent

The uncontested power which money brings

They had only one aim, one passion—to enjoy themselves

Unqualified for happiness

We had taken the dream of a day for eternal happiness

What is a man who remains useless

Without a care or a cross, he grew weary like a prisoner

You are talking too much about it to be sincere



AN "ATTIC" PHILOSOPHER, By Emile Souvestre



Always to mistake feeling for evidence

Ambroise Pare: 'I tend him, God cures him!'

Are we then bound to others only by the enforcement of laws

Attach a sense of remorse to each of my pleasures

Brought them up to poverty

But above these ruins rises a calm and happy face

Carn-ival means, literally, "farewell to flesh!"

Coffee is the grand work of a bachelor's housekeeping

Contemptuous pride of knowledge

Death, that faithful friend of the wretched

Defeat and victory only displace each other by turns

Did not think the world was so great

Do they understand what makes them so gay?

Each of us regards himself as the mirror of the community

Ease with which the poor forget their wretchedness

Every one keeps his holidays in his own way

Fame and power are gifts that are dearly bought

Favorite and conclusive answer of his class—"I know"

Fear of losing a moment from business

Finishes his sin thoroughly before he begins to repent

Fortune sells what we believe she gives

Her kindness, which never sleeps

Houses are vessels which take mere passengers

Hubbub of questions which waited for no reply

I make it a rule never to have any hope

Ignorant of what there is to wish for

Looks on an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance

Make himself a name: he becomes public property

Moderation is the great social virtue

More stir than work

My patronage has become her property

No one is so unhappy as to have nothing to give

Not desirous to teach goodness

Nothing is dishonorable which is useful

Our tempers are like an opera-glass

Poverty, you see, is a famous schoolmistress

Power of necessity

Prisoners of work

Progress can never be forced on without danger

Question is not to discover what will suit us

Richer than France herself, for I have no deficit in my budget

Ruining myself, but we must all have our Carnival

Satisfy our wants, if we know how to set bounds to them

Sensible man, who has observed much and speaks little

So much confidence at first, so much doubt at las

Sullen tempers are excited by the patience of their victims

The happiness of the wise man costs but little

The man in power gives up his peace

Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hesitation

Virtue made friends, but she did not take pupils

We do not understand that others may live on their own account

We are not bound to live, while we are bound to do our duty

What have you done with the days God granted you

What a small dwelling joy can live

You may know the game by the lair



A WOODLAND QUEEN, By Andre Theuriet



Accustomed to hide what I think

Amusements they offered were either wearisome or repugnant

Consoled himself with one of the pious commonplaces

Dreaded the monotonous regularity of conjugal life

Fawning duplicity

Had not been spoiled by Fortune's gifts

How small a space man occupies on the earth

Hypocritical grievances

I am not in the habit of consulting the law

I measure others by myself

It does not mend matters to give way like that

Like all timid persons, he took refuge in a moody silence

More disposed to discover evil than good

Nature's cold indifference to our sufferings

Never is perfect happiness our lot

Opposing his orders with steady, irritating inertia

Others found delight in the most ordinary amusements

Plead the lie to get at the truth

Sensitiveness and disposition to self-blame

The ease with which he is forgotten

There are some men who never have had any childhood

Those who have outlived their illusions

Timidity of a night-bird that is made to fly in the day

To make a will is to put one foot into the grave

Toast and white wine (for breakfast)

Vague hope came over him that all would come right

Vexed, act in direct contradiction to their own wishes

Women: they are more bitter than death

Yield to their customs, and not pooh-pooh their amusements

You have considerable patience for a lover

You must be pleased with yourself—that is more essential

THE END

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