Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

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When you are asked to do something that you could not do, refuse curtly, without leaving any false hope. Give quickly what you want to give. In this way you will conquer the grace of refusal and the grace of beneficence, double probity which wonderfully enhances a character. I do not know whether we do not feel more pity for a disappointed hope than gratitude for a good one.

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The mission of art is not to copy nature, but to reproduce it.

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If the artist does not throw himself into his work like Curtius into the precipice, like the soldier at the assault of the redoubt, without thinking, and if in this crater he does not work like the miner under a collapsing bank, if he considers the difficulties instead of overcoming them, one by one... he is present at the suicide of his talent.

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If the various works of a nation constitute a mirror in which that nation is reflected as a whole, then it may be said that it is the task of the great poets to summarize the thought of the peoples among whom they live, to be, in a word, their age embodied in a man.

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To spread moral principles in the age in which he lives is the goal that every writer must set himself, because otherwise he ends up being nothing more than a maker of amusements... Above all, the goal of a book is to make you think .

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Any ink can become Vesuvius.

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The artist is a missionary; art is a religion that has its priests, but it must also have its martyrs.

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You can express beautiful feelings without having felt them, but you can also feel without being able to express them.

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The writer... his soul sucks in the world and mirrors it.

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Before recognizing one's superiority, the world demands resounding successes.

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Gloria, sad commodity! It costs a lot and doesn't last.

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The egoist shares with others only his worries and annoyances.

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People allow us to rise however high above them, but they never forgive us for not stooping as low as they do. So that the sympathy they give to the chosen characters, is not without some hatred, and fear too much honor means to them a tacit blame which they forgive neither the living nor the dead.

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Envy is the terrible treasure of our disappointed hopes, of our stillborn talents, of our missed successes, of our wounded claims.

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He who has no merit always envies the merit of others.

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Envy is always related to a comparison with ourselves; where there is no comparison, there is no envy.

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Admiration given too quickly is a sign of weakness.

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Those who wish to excel in too many things, out of ease and vanity, are always envious. For they cannot lack reasons for envy, being unable not to surpass them in any of these things.

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There is no greater flatterer of man than himself.

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Is it possible for a creature in eternal struggle with himself, or enmity with life, to leave others in peace and not spoil their happiness?

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Envy unties tongues, as admiration silences them.

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Miserliness begins where poverty ends.

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Glory is the sun of the dead.

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Glory is an unprofitable commodity. It is expensive and difficult to preserve.

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Glory is a poison that is only useful in small doses.

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Chance is the world's greatest novelist.

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Morals are corrected by laughter.

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Humiliating himself, an unhappy man only increases his unhappiness.

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Perfect beauty is almost always marked by either coldness or stupidity.

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To doubt God is to believe in Him.

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The strongest shocks in life heal us of small fears.

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A mother's heart is an abyss in the depth of which forgiveness will always be found.

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The family will always be the basis of society.

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The truth is like a bitter drink with an unpleasant taste, but which restores your health.

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Gratitude is shown by deeds.

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To retreat out of cowardice and fear is still considered a skillful maneuver today.

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Indifference to the fair sex in old age is a punishment for the fact that man has known too much pleasure in his youth.

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A jealous person really doubts not his wife, but himself.

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Man's jealousy consists of an extreme selfishness, a pride taken by surprise, and an irritated false vanity.

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One's beliefs are not displayed on the wall.

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Self-love is a poison to friendship.

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Permanent work is the law of both art and life.

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The state of a bachelor is an antisocial state.

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The success of one brave man always inspires to zeal and courage a whole generation.

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To say that it is impossible to always love the same woman is as absurd as to think that a famous musician needs different violins to play differently.

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Courting women, many dry, so to speak, the wood that will not burn for them.

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Reaching the edge does not mean reaching the goal.

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Man needs to know strong feelings in order to develop the noble traits in himself that widen the circle of his life.

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The passion for collecting is the first phase of a mental disorder.

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What would happen to literature, if its species were not defended? We have our own cassation court - this is the future. Happy is he who will be able to appear before her!

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To reach the goal, you must, first of all, walk.

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To appreciate excellent works of literature... requires a wide education, a developed intelligence, quietude, leisure, and some effort of the mind.

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To doubt is to lose your powers.

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It is the lie that degrades man.

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The mind, like a country road, has its own beaten path.

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Socialism, which imagines itself as something new, is an old parricide. He has always killed his mother, the republic, and his sister, liberty.

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Social depravity takes the form of the social environment in which it develops.

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The means of performing an action merge with the results.

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Style is the generation of ideas, not words.

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Passion misjudges.

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Mediocrity wages a terrible and ceaseless battle with those who are above it.

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That's how men are: they can resist the most rational arguments, but they can't resist a single look.

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A man's talent is like a woman's beauty - just a promise. To be truly great, his heart and character must be equal to his talent.

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Where ambition intervenes, there is no room for sincerity.

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We recognize as man only the one whose soul in love dreams as much of spiritual pleasure as of bodily pleasure.

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Cheeky hypocrisy commands respect from people who have trained themselves to be obedient.

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A Zephlemist always has a superficial nature.

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Our conscience is an infallible judge, until we kill it.

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He will not be friends with a woman, the one who can be her lover.

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Let us not consider virtuous women out of stupidity, because it is known that in love all women are intelligent.

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Ignorance is the mother of all crimes. A crime means, first of all, lack of reason.

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We all die unknown.

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A man has no right to marry unless he has first studied anatomy and performed the autopsy of at least one woman.

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The husband, like a government, must under no circumstances admit his mistakes.

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People are rarely proud of their flaws - most try to cover them up with an attractive outfit.

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People fear cholera, but wine is much more dangerous than it.

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Love endures domestic quarrels so hard that for enduring happiness mutually outstanding qualities must be found.

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Love unites in itself all good human qualities.

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To a nature of high moral standing, love is like the Sun to the Earth.

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Love is a remarkable counterfeiter of money, always turning not only trifle into gold, but often gold into brass.

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Love is the only passion that recognizes neither the past nor the future.

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Misfortune is the touchstone of character.

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There are no masterpieces that have perished in oblivion.

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The lying and libellism of some writers cannot support the life of a bad book.

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A decent woman is one whom the lover is afraid to compromise.

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The battlefield on which the mind fights is more terrible than the battlefield on which it dies; the former is harder to plow than an ordinary plain.

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Seeking diversity in love is a sign of powerlessness.

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Next to a fool there will always be a crook.

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Plunging into the sea of ​​pleasure, we find at the bottom more sand than pearls.

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A writer truly exists only when his convictions are firm.

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Publishing is for a manuscript like the theater for women: all the advantages and disadvantages are shown in public.

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Lack of taste is one of those shortcomings that are inseparable from hypocrisy.

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Society lives on recognized truths.

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Public opinion does not tolerate sudden changes.

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Never do unsolicited services.

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No one will look for the hidden virtues.

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There is nothing inside those people who always let it all out.

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Nothing binds us like our own sins do.

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We know nothing less well than what everyone should know: the law.

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Morals are the people and laws are the raison d'être of a country. Mores are often crueler than laws. Morals, often unreasonable, prevail over laws.

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Circumstances are changeable, principles never are.

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Pain is the most persistent of all our senses.

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Civil courage and military courage come from the same source.

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It is not at all enough to show that the present is greater than the past: the foreboding of the future that is greater than our present must be evoked.

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Money is necessary even if you can get by without it.

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Virtues can also be harmful if they are not enlightened by reason.

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Virtue is an indivisible thing: it either is or it is not.

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We are tired of big wars; it seems to me that the time has come for a great peace.

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Friendship between two saints does more harm than sincere enmity between ten villains.

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If you talk to yourself all the time, you will always be right.

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Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism set in motion by dwarves.

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If the wife started talking about the economy, it means that your stocks started to fall.

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If a man is good-natured and sociable, women are interested not in where he came from, but where he wants to go.

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To talk about love is to make love.

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The stupidity is so great that it is impossible to investigate it to the end, no echo is born in it, it absorbs everything irrevocably.

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In prose we remain on solid ground, and in poetry we must rise to immeasurable heights.

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At fifty, a man is more dangerous than at any other age, because he has expensive experience and wealth.

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Great men have always been sparing of food.

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Equality may be a right, but no human power is able to change it into reality.

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Will can and should be an object of pride more than talent. If talent is the development of natural inclinations, then a firm will is the minute victory over the instincts and passions which the will restrains and suppresses, over the obstacles and hindrances which it overcomes over all kinds of difficulties which it heroically overcomes .

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Time is the capital of a man with intellectual concerns.

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Everything comes in due time to those who know how to wait.

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All human craftsmanship is not a mixture of patience and time.

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There are men whose stupidity and obstinacy truly surpass all that can be expected of a creature of God.

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All power is a continuous conspiracy.

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There are two kinds of stupidity: silent and talkative.

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In old age, love turns into a vice.

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If you don't believe in yourself, you can't be a genius.

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Slander is indifferent to little people.

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The key to any science is a question mark.

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When a woman is too old to please men, she turns to God.

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When we read a book, our sense of truth tells us, "This is a lie!" - at every incorrect detail. If this sense speaks to us too often and to all of us, it means that the book in question does not have and will not have any value. The secret of universal and eternal success lies in truthfulness.

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When a man has been sick for a long time, he becomes more skilled than the doctor himself, and begins to understand his illness, which does not always happen with honest doctors.

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When a man boasts that he will not change his beliefs, he obliges himself to walk the straight line all the time, we are dealing with an idiot who believes in his own infallibility. There are no principles, only happenstance; there are no laws - only circumstances; a man of scope adapts to events and circumstances in order to dominate them.

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He who is everywhere finds no interest in his person anywhere.

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It is easier to be a lover than a husband, because it is more difficult to be witty every day than to joke once in a while.

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Flattery never springs from big souls, it is part of small souls, who know how to make themselves even smaller in order to enter the life of an important person, to whom they are attracted.

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Love is the fool's only possibility to grow in his eyes.

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There are joys in every form of creation: the idea is to know how to gather the good where you find it.

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How sweet are critical remarks from the lips of friends; believe in them; they grieve you, for there is no doubt that they are right, but they cause you no pain.

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Each night must have its own menu.

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A true scientist is a dreamer, and he who is not a dreamer calls himself a practical man.

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There are poets who feel and poets who express; the former are the happiest.

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A woman who laughs at her husband can no longer love him.

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Cruelty and fear shake hands.

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Life is a succession of all kinds of combinations; they must be studied and controlled to keep them always in an advantageous form.

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Envy is one of the most effective components of hatred.

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The task of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. We must capture the mind, the meaning, the appearance of things and beings.

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A married woman is a slave whom you must know how to place on a throne.

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The ideal beauty, the most charming appearance has no value if no one admires it.

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Ideas can only be neutralized by ideas.

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The idea is superior to the fact.

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Art is the garment of a nation.

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Adultery does more harm than good to marriage.

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Architecture is the expression of morality.

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Fiction represents a particular history of nations.

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A noble heart cannot be unfaithful.

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A marriage cannot be happy if the spouses, before getting married, did not know each other's morals, habits and characters perfectly.

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The future of the nation is in the hands of mothers.

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There are people like zeros: they always need a number in front of them.

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Perhaps virtue is nothing but delicacy of soul.

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Only kings, whores and thieves can feel at home everywhere.

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Every exaggeration is the brother of the other.

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A beautiful body, unfortunately, will always triumph over even the most stubborn determination!

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I admired him and endowed him with charms that he didn't really have.

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How happy he is not in love yet!

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I loved my captivity because it was voluntary.

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Our conscience is an infallible judge, if we have not yet killed it.

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It seems we never pay enough for the pleasures of vanity.

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The human soul is like a fairy: it turns a straw into a diamond.

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Happiness consumes our strength, just as misfortune extinguishes our virtues.

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I didn't want to be alone with myself anymore.

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If a power doesn't retaliate by being ignored: it's over.

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We can already burn out the wounds, but we have not yet found a cure for the trouble caused by a sentence.

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Closing or opening a door: isn't it one and the same movement?

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From my childhood, I was prepared to be a big man, and like André Chenier, I hit him on the forehead and said: "There's something here!"

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Nothing is perfect here on earth, only misery.

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Those who chase luck may have an easy time!

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He who admits his weakness is already very strong.

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Intemperance, my friend, is the queen of the mortal sexes.

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The poet creates a poem out of everything, terrifying or joyful, depending on what images capture him; his heated soul rejects soft shades and always chooses bright, sharp colors.

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I feel that it would be best to stay like this for the rest of my life: I would just look at you, happy and satisfied.

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He who is superstitious cannot be entirely unlucky. Superstition is sometimes hope.

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Everywhere only the human yes and no pursues.

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The human heart sometimes rests on its way to the summits of passionate affection, but rarely stops when it descends down the slope of hateful feelings.

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Petty souls feed their good or bad tempers with incessant pettiness.

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According to the logic of empty-headed people - who are all sociable because their tongues only talk about nothing - those who don't talk about their affairs are in bad shape.

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There is nothing more unpleasant than when others find out about our disabilities. It ruins our marriage prospects.

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There is nothing more beautiful than a sailing ship, a galloping horse, or a dancing woman.

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The eyes of a young man see everything: his spirit unites with the radiance of a woman, as a plant absorbs the substances it needs from the air.

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Some people feel better on the fence in front of their opponent, who stabs a dagger in their heart, than face to face with a woman who complains for two hours and then passes out, so that they need to be revived.

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A woman in love is more resourceful when looking for reasons for suspicion than she is voracious in the pursuit of pleasures. When he is about to leave her, he grasps the meaning of a gesture faster than Virgil's penis sniffs the distant male powder that promises him marriage.

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Some of them may have nothing to gain in the eyes of those they live with, and after they have been shown the emptiness of their hearts, they feel they deserve the harsh judgment made about them. But either because they have an irresistible desire for the flattery they lack, or because they want to boast of good qualities that they do not possess, they hope to win the esteem and hearts of strangers, even if they have to lose them over time. There are born profiteers who are not good to their friends and relatives, precisely because they would try to make them good; on the other hand, by doing favors to strangers, they fan their vanity; the narrower the circle, the commiserable they are, the wider they are, the more willing they are to serve him.

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In the midst of life's ups and downs, our souls are strongly connected to the places where we experience joy or sorrow.

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Beauty would be worthless without joys.

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It is easier to be a good lover than a good husband, for the simple reason that, for example, it is more difficult to be witty every blessed day than to invent nice things - sometimes.

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You are still much younger, weaker and more sensitive, so you could not bear the troubles and many struggles of married life. You will either be a victim or a tyrant. Both scenarios can only bring misfortune to a woman's life.

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With a woman in whom the genius of her sex lives alive, love never becomes a habit; his charming tenderness can take so many forms, he is so witty and so loving at the same time, he mixes so much artifice into his naturalness and so much naturalness into his art that his memory exercises as much power as his presence. All other women pale next to her. The value of such bright, great love can only be appreciated by those who have to fear losing it or have already lost it.

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No, you can never love anyone again as you loved me, as you love me; I can no longer have a rival. If I'm going to think about our love, because it's going to be my only thought now, I won't find an iota of bitterness in it. Because after that you will never again be able to charm a woman with those childish ways, the young kindnesses of the young heart, the flirtatiousness of the soul, the charm of the body and the quick agreement of lust, in short, with the charming accompaniment that follows young love.

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The soul must absorb and assimilate the emotions of another soul in order to reciprocate them even more abundantly. Without this beautiful human phenomenon, there is no life in the heart, and the heart, for lack of air, dies in agony.

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The mistakes of women almost always arise from a belief in goodness or a trust in truth.

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A little work makes you exceedingly vain, a lot of work infinitely humble.

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Maybe love is nothing more than gratitude for beauty.

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If the man cheats, he is forced to lie again and again.

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Unfortunately, we never spare money to satisfy our whims, we only bargain when it is useful or necessary.

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Love is the most melodious of all harmonies: its feeling is born with us.

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The more we judge, the less we love.

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Let's go high. If we want to win heaven, we must aim at the Lord God.

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Love knows only the present tense.

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The human heart is a treasury, but whoever empties it all at once will be ruined.

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There is no great talent without great willpower.

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For women, happiness is their poetry, just as beautiful clothes are their adornment.

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The world is nothing but a community of cheaters and cheats.

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In major crises, the heart either breaks or hardens.

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Tears are as contagious as laughter.

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Life is a series of combinations, and these combinations must be continuously studied and followed closely if one wants to maintain his favorable position.

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True discovery does not lie in finding new lands, but in seeing the world with new eyes.

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True love has its own premonitions and knows that love begets love.

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The sudden love that leads to marriage is a true pearl, a diamond, a precious stone polished by the greatest artist, a treasure that must be hidden in the deepest part of the heart.

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The great secret of a strong and creative soul is the ability to forget.

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There is no folly into which foolish social rivals, the stimulus of the newspaper, and blinded youth do not drive a young man into.

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Some people look for paradise in marriage and find a snake.

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The moment of marriage, when two hearts can understand each other, is as short as lightning, and once it's gone, it never comes back.

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Marriage is a science. Marriage must constantly fight against an all-consuming monster, habit.

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Behind every great fortune lies a sin.

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We can be in love without happiness and happy without love. It would be a real miracle if we were in love in such a way that we felt happy at the same time.

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Love is like the wind, you never know where it will come from.

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Nothing is more difficult for a man to bear than pity, especially when he deserves it.

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An hour of love is worth a lifetime.

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Tyranny creates great things illegally, and freedom does not even bother to create at least very small things legally.

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Sometimes you think you've made things more perfect, but you've just grouped them differently.

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There is no science or virtue worth a single drop of blood.

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Women have a habit, I don't even know what inclination, of seeing only their faults in a talented man, and only their advantages in stupid figures.

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The miserable always understand each other and help each other.

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I'll try to tell you how much I love you later. But now I can only feel it.

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The most prestigious and surest capital in the world is the future.

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I never doubted my health for a moment. In any case, those who are poor can only lie down when they die.

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Everyone is drawn by their own passion!

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The miser relies on only two emotions: the love he feels for himself and the desire to pursue his own interests.

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The world is a quagmire, let's try to stay on top.

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When we are in trouble, there is a friend who is ready to plunge the dagger into our hearts and wants us to admire his grip.

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All good things are expected from a woman in love, and all bad things come to pass.

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Every pain has a lesson.

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True love is a lot like childhood: it has the same recklessness, senselessness, wastefulness, laughing and crying.

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It is not the pains that kill a man, but the hopes in which he is disappointed.

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The religion and cult of love probably costs more than any other religion; it quickly fades away, and like the linen child stone, it marks its path with destruction.

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If our love is platonic for a little too long, it destroys us.

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Real feelings pass from soul to soul.

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True feeling makes a person see and understand.

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Evil always speaks with a loud voice, excites and fills the ordinary soul with wonder, but good works in silent silence.

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The fraternal heart is a pure diamond, its tenderness is boundless!

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He who is rich is virtuous!

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Law and morality have no power over the rich.

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We forgive the feeling that it is completely exposed as little as we forgive a person that it does not have an ear.

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There is hardly any woman who, at least once in her life, as a result of some indisputable fact, has not been faced with a sharp, incisive, decisive question, a merciless question which, if the husband asks, cold horror runs through the woman beforehand, and the first word is like murderous steel penetrates his heart. This is where the basic truth comes from: all women lie. A pious lie, a forgivable lie, a noble lie, a disgusting lie, but definitely a compelling lie! By the way, if we recognize this compulsion, it is understandable that everyone strives for clever lies. Women in France are amazing at lying. Our morals do a great job of teaching them to be duplicitous. Suffice it to say, the woman is so brazenly childish in lying, so charming, so honest; so well does he recognize lies as a suitable means of avoiding violent collisions that threaten all happiness, that he cannot do without it any more than the cotton wool in which he wraps his jewels. Lying is the basis of the woman's speech, telling the truth is only a rare exception. He sometimes tells the truth, just as he can be virtuous out of whim or calculation. And then some women laugh when they lie, others cry, some become gloomy, others get out of the way, as is their nature. Having begun life by accepting with feigned indifference the obeisances most flattering to vanity, they often end up lying to themselves.

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Doesn't questioning a woman mean exposing yourself to her? After all, this way he knows everything that we want to hide from him, and maybe he hides the most when he speaks.

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Gratitude is a debt that children don't always take stock of.

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Whether he travels or stays by his hearth and his wife's skirt, sooner or later the age will come when life is nothing more than fixed habits to which a person indulges in an environment of his choosing. In such cases, there is only one happiness left for us: if we can develop our abilities that we can use in real life. Apart from these two methods, everything else is false.

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What Europe admires, Asia punishes. What is a sin in Paris inevitably becomes a necessity as soon as one gets beyond the Azores. Nothing is permanent here on earth, we live according to social conventions that change according to the world landscapes. Conviction and morality are just dead words for those who, out of compulsion, have slipped into all social forms. Only one true feeling remains in us, the one that nature planted in us: the instinct of self-preservation.

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There is only one earthly value that deserves to be cared for by man. And this is gold. Gold represents all human strength.

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Man is the same everywhere: everywhere there is a struggle between the rich and the poor, everywhere it is inevitable, so it is better to be an exploiter than to be exploited; everywhere there are muscular people who work, and weak people who torment themselves; the joys are the same everywhere, because values ​​are exhausted everywhere, and only one passion survives them all: vanity.

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Vanity can only be satisfied with a sea of ​​gold. Our passions require time and energy, or great devotion. In gold, all of this is included in its germ, and it makes all of this come true.

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To secure their wealth, the rich invented laws, judges, the guillotine, all the candles whose flames the ignorant burn their fingers.

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If a good deed may not harm the benefactor, it always ruins the one to whom it is committed.

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The one who ties and unties the string of the money bag, people will not refuse anything.

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Life is a machine whose movement is controlled by money.

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Betrayed passion, insulted vanity are eloquent. Bad disposition, disappointment, revenge are the best police detectives.

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Happiness is the game of strong passions that grind a person to the ground, or some precisely regulated occupation that makes a person look like an English machine working in rhythm. In addition to these pleasures, there is still some kind of noble curiosity in us, which wants to know the secrets of nature or imitate its manifestations. It is Art or Science, Passion or Serenity.

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Isn't it folly to duel if the truth is harmed by it?

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When it comes to a lady, nothing can demean a man of gallantry.

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Women, although they complain to men that they do not love them in the right way, still have very little regard for men whose souls are half-feminine. Their whole superiority consists in making men believe that man is inferior to woman in love; thus, they easily leave their lover alone, if he is inexperienced enough to remove from them all the fears with which they like to play, the pleasurable torments of feigned jealousy, the anxieties of disappointed hope, fruitless waiting, in short, the whole range of the delights of their sweet feminine frailty.

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What could be more profoundly opposed to woman's nature than calm, perfect love? They need excitement, calm happiness is not considered happiness. Those female souls who are strong enough to find infinity in love are angelic exceptions and in the world of women they mean the same thing as the creative flame among men. Great love passions are as rare as masterpieces. What exists outside of these is all casual union, a passing stimulus, as contemptible as all things of a lower order.

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At that age, when there is still enough youth in the soul to grieve and to cherish distant hopes, when he can still see in woman more than woman, is not the greatest happiness that can befall a man, to love like the touch of a white glove , the running touch of your beloved's hair, the utterance of a sentence, the capture of a fleeting glance, fill you with a deeper joy than the smoothest union in reciprocated love can give? This is why only the outcasts, the ugly, the unfortunate, the secretly lovers, the shy women and men know the treasures that the voice of the adored being hides. Since the origin and law of the trembling of the heat-saturated air is in the soul itself, it creates such unsustainable harmony between hearts, evokes thoughts so brilliantly and seems so sincere that the slightest deviation of the voice often hides a complete dissolution. Love trembles in his voice, even before his eyes reveal it.

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For bad-tempered people who like to make fun of everything, it can be a great pleasure to know a woman's secret, to know that her modesty is a lie, that her gentle face hides a deep thought, that some terrible drama lurks behind her clear face. But there are souls who are genuinely saddened by such a sight, and many of the laughers, when they are alone at home with their conscience, curse the world and treat such a woman with contempt.

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Even the most beautiful ambition is extinguished in the household account book.

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Those poor people whose lives lack love, and who spend the best hours of their youth in soul-killing work, only they know the secret of the rapid destruction that a great passion brings about in their suppressed, misunderstood souls. They are so sure of the correctness of their choice, they waste all the strength of their souls on the woman they have fallen in love with so suddenly that they experience beautiful excitements near her, often without arousing the same in her. This flatters the selfishness of women best if they are able to recognize this apparent immobility of passion and the latent passion that comes from so deep that it takes time to rise to the surface. These unfortunate floats are hermits in the heart of Paris, they experience all the pleasures of hermit life and it happens that they cannot resist its temptations; but even more often they fall victim to disappointment, betrayal, and misrepresentation and they rarely get to pluck the fruit of this love, which for them always means a flower falling from the sky.

"

If one wanted to conquer the heart of a queen by force, this daring attempt would perhaps promise more hope than falling in love with a woman who is happily married. A queen is usually made vain by her power, and thus to the detriment of her own majesty; on the other hand, a bigoted bourgeois woman is like a snail, like an oyster, which hides in the bloodstream of its hard shell.

"

There is hardly any passion that does not eventually lead a person to sin.

"

Julius Ceasar's sister cannot be suspected with impunity.

"

Jealous lovers think anything is possible. And judges, spies, lovers, and scientific researchers arrive at the desired truth precisely by considering everything possible and selecting the most probable among many possibilities.

"

Hiding our own secret is no big deal; but to listen in advance to something that has happened, if necessary, to forget it for thirty years, as Ali Pasha did, in order to carry out a revenge plan that had been simmering for thirty years: this is no small thing in a country where few people can pretend, even for just thirty days.

"

The police, my dear son, is the most ineffective institution in the world, and the state power is the weakest when it comes to a purely personal matter. Neither one nor the other can read hearts. It is common sense to ask them to investigate the intellectual authors of an act. It should be known, however, that both the state and the police are extremely unsuitable for this purpose: they lack, above all, the personal interest that reveals everything to those who want to know everything. There is no power in the world that can prevent a murderer or a poisoner from entering the heart of a prince or the stomach of an honest man. Passion is the best police.

"

We should only touch our enemy if we can knock his head off.

"

It is always easy to dismiss a man who likes women.

"

They were silent friends, and as if from some evil fate, they were wary of it in order to enter into a more confidential relationship. (...) It would have been possible to explain this feeling, which made him a friend and an enemy at the same time, and treated each other with indifference as much as it connected them by instinct, uniting them, but actually separating them. Who knows, maybe they wanted to preserve their illusions.

"

But after all, Paris is a real ocean. You can throw the meter into it, you'll never know its depth. You go to great lengths to write it down; but no matter how much care you take to explore and describe it, no matter how numerous and zealous the explorers of this sea are, there is always a virgin area, an unknown cave, a flower, a true pearl, a monster or other surprising find that escaped the attention of literary divers.

"

The woman disrupts the order of society with the power of passion.

"

Man always demands again the completely incomprehensible, scientific things, which always have a magical effect, like everything that is deep, mysterious, incomprehensible.

"

There is no virtue that is not accompanied by some sin.

"

The most dangerous thing in the world is when someone is witty, but alone, withdrawn into a corner.

"

The prettier the book, the less likely it is to sell. They can rise above all excellent people to the masses, so their success is in direct proportion to the time during which they can learn the value of their work.

"

The passion of an actress is beautiful precisely because it is in the most striking contrast with her surroundings.

"

Love cannot be ripped out of the heart like pulling a tooth.

"

Everyone thinks they suffer more than the other.

"

From the way people act, you can read who they are, what they have done so far, where they came from and what their intentions are.

"

Those who so easily put someone on the list of infamy have a great difficulty when it comes to erasing someone from it.

"

To be at home everywhere: this is the privilege of kings, maidens and thieves.

"

The social world equips all its members with qualities that are necessary for the service expected of the individual. Society is the second Nature!

"

As at sea, there is a deceptive calm in politics.

"

We all have our own atmosphere, and the inhabitants of each atmosphere have an equal amount of curiosity.

"

No one can become a great person cheaply. The flamethrower waters his creations with tears. Talent is a moral being, and like all living beings, it also has a disease-prone childhood. Society repels imperfect talent just as Nature repels weak or ill-formed creatures. He who wants to rise above men must prepare himself for the struggle and must not shrink from any difficulty. A great writer is a martyr who will not die.

"

Rhyme makers always fail when they try to work in prose. In prose, there are no soft words to replace verses, something must be said there.

"

Would the spring be more delightful than the river, would desire be more charming than pleasure, and what we hope for be more attractive than all that we possess?

"

This is life, in reality. It's not prettier than the kitchen, it's just as smelly, and whoever wants to cook in it will certainly get their hands dirty, the important thing is to be able to wash it afterwards: this is the morality of our time.

"

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our transgressions; when they do not love us, they forgive us nothing, not even our virtues.

"

Miserliness begins where poverty ends.

"

The habits of youth return with great force in a person's old age.

"

Each excess develops the body in its own specific direction. Drunkenness, just like studying, makes the fat man fatter and eats away the thin man.

"

One of the misfortunes of great minds is that they inevitably understand everything, vice as well as virtue.

"

A misrecognized person takes revenge for his lowly position by the very fact that his spirit soars very high.

"

The ox's job is to pull the yoke patiently, the bird's job is to live carefree.

"

The lack of company is one of the most serious inconveniences of village life. If one never makes the small sacrifices required by one's behavior and dress, one will eventually stop bothering oneself about others altogether. Then everything in us will deteriorate, both form and spirit.

"

Our ridiculousness is largely caused by exaggerated beautiful feelings, virtues or good qualities. Pride, unmitigated by contact with the world, turns to ridicule when it manifests itself in small things instead of being able to find impetus in the midst of elevated emotions. Enthusiasm, the virtue of the virtues, which creates saints, which suggests secret self-sacrifices and the most brilliant poems, becomes exaggerated when it becomes entangled in the trivialities of country life. Away from the center, where great minds shine, where the air is full of thoughts, where everything is renewed - knowledge grows old, taste decays like stagnant water.

"

Without practice, passions become petty because they blow up small things. This is the reason for the avarice and gossip that make country life so stinking. The imitation of narrow ideals and petty manners soon takes its toll on even the noblest personality. This is how people destined for greatness perish, women who would have been charming if they had been elevated by the teachings of the world and shaped by higher spirits.

"

Where ambition begins, naive emotions end.

"

The number of acquaintances increases the chances of success in all areas, and chance is also on the side of the great armies.

"

First of all, we are the property of humanity, only then can we give ourselves for a person.

"

Winding roads do not lead to good.

"

Youth, when inclined towards injustice, does not dare to look at itself in the mirror of conscience, while old age has already seen this reflection: this is the difference between these two periods of life.

"

A good deed that welds two beings into one is as mysterious and rare a celestial passion as true love. This, too, is a waste of beautiful souls.

"

If someone has a lover, his position is almost royal... A lover is a sign of power.

"

A father is with his children as God is with us humans. He sees into hearts and judges intentions.

"

There is no perfect happiness on earth.

"

The enormous influence of emotions on human nature is remarkable. A person can be any ordinary person, as soon as he expresses a strong and true feeling, the strange fluid flowing from him changes his facial expression, enlivens his movements, and makes his voice colorful. Under the influence of passion, the stupidest person often rises to the highest heights of eloquence, if not in speech, but in thought, and it will be as if he were floating in some shining sphere.

"

A woman does not have two loves.

"

Passion never miscalculates.

"

Man can satisfy his inclinations in the narrowest circle as well as in the widest area.

"

Happiness... always resides between the soles of our feet and the crown of our heads, and whether it costs a million a year or a hundred gold, its effect on our spiritual life is the same.

"

A woman does not cling to a man for no reason.

"

A young man's first intrigue may have the same charm as his first love. From the sure knowledge of success comes a great feeling of happiness, men don't admit it to themselves, but some women are beautiful because of it. Desire can be born equally from the difficulty and ease of triumph. These two causes divide the kingdom of love, and all the passions of men are either kindled or sustained by one or the other. This division perhaps follows from the great question of tempers, which, whatever may be said, is the decisive question of society. While melancholics crave the thrill of flirting, nervous or sanguine people give up the fight if the resistance takes too long.

"

The gold shackles are the heaviest.

"

What moralists call the depths of the human heart are actually deceptive thoughts, the involuntary vibrations of individual interest. These mental complications, about which there is so much empty talk, these sudden reversals, are nothing more than calculations for the benefit of our pleasures.

"

To cling to virtue is a noble martyrdom!

"

The secret of large fortunes created for no apparent reason is a crime that has been forgotten because it was skillfully committed.

"

The penniless student gets a grain of pleasure the way a dog, running through a thousand dangers, bites a bone, chews it apart, sucks out the marrow; while the young man, when a few fleeting pieces of gold jingle in his pocket, enjoys his pleasures little by little, revels in them as if floating among the clouds, forgets what this word means: misery.

"

Ideas, without a doubt, shoot forth with the force with which they arise, and strike where the mind sends them, according to a kind of mathematical law that governs a bullet fired from a mortar. But ideas work in different ways. If they nestle themselves in gentle natures, they rage and destroy there. On the other hand, there are strongly bloodied natures, ore-walled skulls, on which the alien will flattens and falls like a bullet from a stone bastion. Then there are flabby, cotton-wool natures in which other people's ideas are lost, just as bullets sink into the soft soil of a castle rampart.

"

A balanced account is the basis of a good friendship.

"

There are only two possible resolutions: stupid obedience or rebellion.

"

When a woman feels strong, happy and beautiful, she wishes for the most powerful of all men, taking the risk that she will crumble in his arms.

"

It's tiring to always just wish and never be satisfied.

"

People bow to the power of the flamethrower, they hate him, they try to slander him because he fights without sharing, but if he persists, they bow to him. So they worship on their knees, if they couldn't be dragged into the mud. Corruption is rife, the flame is scarce. Thus, corruption is a weapon of prevailing mediocrity, which cuts live everywhere.

"

Man is an imperfect being. Sometimes he is more or less a hypocrite, and the simpletons then say that he is moral or immoral.

"

A young woman will never refuse her purse from the man who has conquered her heart.

"

The heart of a poor, unfortunate, wretched girl is the sponge that is most greedily filled with love, a dry sponge that swells as soon as a drop of feeling falls on it. Courting a young woman who is in a state of abandonment, despair, and poverty, and who has no idea of ​​her future wealth, is like holding all the trump cards, knowing the lottery numbers, that is, playing the stock market with certain information.

"

There are many types of hunting. Some hunt for dowry, others for bankrupt masses. There are those who ensnare consciences, there are those who sell their subscribers in knots. Anyone who returns home with a full backpack is greeted, celebrated, and welcomed into the elite company.

"

He who boasts that he never changes his mind pretends to undertake to always follow a straight line. Such a person is single-minded, he believes in infallibility. And there are no principles, only events; there are no laws, only circumstances. The superior person accepts events and situations in order to control them. If there were solid principles and laws, peoples wouldn't change them like we change shirts. An individual is not obliged to be wiser than an entire nation.

"

Virtue... cannot be broken up; it's either there or it's not.

"

We share everything with those to whom we owe our happiness.

"

It is in the nature of women to believe the impossible to be possible, and to suppress the facts with conjecture.

"

The more difficult it is for us to achieve something, the more uncontrollably we desire it.

"

It is hell for a father to be without his children.

"

We must die to know what dwells in our children.

"

If they love a beggar, at least you can be sure that they love you.

"

Homeland is lost if fathers are trampled underfoot.

"

Fatherhood is the cornerstone of society and the world; everything falls apart if the children do not love their father.

"

If a man wanders in the hot sun, he does not stop on the way to pluck the most beautiful flower.

"

One of the greatest advantages of our beautiful Paris is that one can be born, live, and die here without anyone caring.

"

The unhappy lovers feel like brothers in their agony, just like the martyrs. Nothing in the world understands each other like two related pains.

"

In men, beauty is not always a sign of goodness. Good-looking young people at the beginning of their lives do not encounter any difficulties, they do not develop their abilities, they are spoiled by the kindness of the world, and later they have to pay bitter interest for their situation!

"

Over time, one realizes that pleasure is the wealth of the soul, and it is no more flattering to be loved for pleasure than for one's wealth.

"

The soul can be sick just like the body. But the soul does not tolerate suffering as easily as the body; the body does not support the soul any more than the soul supports the body.

"

Loneliness: suffering, multiplied by infinity.

"

The way a Parisian woman wraps herself in her shawl, the way she lifts her legs in the street, can be used by the expert to figure out the secret of her hidden ways.

"

Pure souls cannot stay long in this world. How could great feelings be compatible with a mean, petty, superficial society?

"

The laws of the heart also apply to the most noble people, their lives are not without sorrow, contradicting the claims of those who want to flatter the people.

"

In its relentlessness, the social law often condemns crimes that are excused by the countless changes that occur in families due to differences in character, interests and situations.

"

Failure always strengthens our efforts.

"

Love, like a church, wants beautiful tablecloths for its altars.

"

Almost all young men are addicted to a law which is apparently inexplicable, even though its cause lies precisely in youth and in the furious determination with which they pursue pleasure. Whether they are rich or poor, they never have money for the necessities of life, but there is always money to satisfy their whims. They are spendthrifts in everything that is available on credit, and misers in everything that has to be paid for in cash, and as if in revenge for what they don't have, they squander everything they get their hands on.

"

He who wants to use love as a means of acquiring wealth must swallow all shame and abandon the noble ideals that make the errors of youth excusable.

"

Women are always true, because even in their biggest lies they obey the dictates of their natural feelings.

"

True love must pay for things gone wrong. This perversity, unfortunately, will always be common until men realize how many flowers they mow in women's hearts with the first infidelity.

"

A woman's flirtatiousness sometimes brings more benefits than her love can give.

"

The superior man, if he plays a few little scenes of virtue on the world's stage, can gratify all his whims to the applause of the foolish spectators on the ground floor.

"

The first woman, the first real woman who impresses a man... such a woman can have no rival.

"

Fathers are happy when they can give.

"

The more alive and sincere love is, the more veiled and mysterious it must be.

"

Lying is degrading.

"

However, the superior person can rise above prejudices, and the Christian puts up with the troubles that every good deed entails, even if it does not coincide with the accepted principles.

"

The office, like the army, has its passive obedience. This system stifles conscience, grinds people down, and eventually uses them as cogs in the government machinery.

"

Despotism does great things illegally, and even the smallest problem of freedom is greater than doing something legitimate legally.

"

Quarrelsome selfishness, that is our epidemic anthrax, consumes everything that is art, science or memory.

"

Yes and no! Aren't these two words the history of all religious, political and literary treatises? Man is a clown dancing above a vortex.

"

Glory is a sad commodity. It is very expensive and difficult to maintain. Does it not depend merely on the selfishness of great men, as happiness depends on that of fools?

"

The really big man who has remorse because he has some idea of ​​virtue.

"

Has an artist ever hesitated when he had to choose between the poverty of riches and the riches of poverty?

"

Journalism is the religion of modern societies and has a great future.

"

The one who feels his great vocation walks through misery like the innocent condemned on the way to the place of perdition, with his head held high.

"

In any case, the poor man should not go to bed unless he already feels his death.

"

May your drink be easy who is chasing luck!

"

We can leave the woman who sold herself to us free, but not the girl who surrendered, because she has no idea how much sacrifice she made.

"

Priests, judges and women are never completely undressed.

"

Does the poor, proud artistic soul, blessed with the power of creation, bear the easily damaging weapon of egoism? A huge stream of thoughts swirls around him, which swallows everything, even his beloved, who should swim with him. What kind of flattery would a woman believe in the love of such a man? Which one would run after him? Such a man is not capable of committing all the many years of monkeying around, which are so dear to women and with which the shrewder and more superficially feeling man wins. How would you waste the little time you have for work anyway by belittling yourself, wooing yourself?

"

Individualities disappear as soon as we level a people with equal education.

"

In the beginning, power was above all materialistic, raw, crude; only later, when it had become more concentrated, did the ruling elements break up the primordial unified power. Thus, for example, in the most ancient times power belonged to the theocracy; the priest held the pallos and the censer. Later, power was already divided between the high priest and the king. Today, in our society, at this height of human culture, power has already been distributed to such an extent that we call power, which expresses itself in different ways, sometimes as industry, sometimes as thought, sometimes as money or words. Power, no longer having its unity, leads to social decay, limited only by interests. Therefore, let us no longer rely on faith or material power, but on reason. Is the book worth the pallos? Is the debate worth the action?

"

When I flew above all human things, I noticed up there at the top that there are still mountains to climb and all kinds of obstacles left in reality. And yet it was this boundless overestimation of myself that saved me. That blind faith in fate, which sometimes really leads to triumph, if we don't let our soul breaking through all the troubles of life be torn like a lamb breaks through a thorn hedge.

"

The woman's, it seems, requires a bit of duplicity.

"

In order to get to know a person as a whole, we have to penetrate into his thoughts, his fate, and his feelings. Those who are only interested in the material events of life make a chronology for the beauty of donkeys!

"

The woman doesn't even pay attention to the one who flirts with her.

"

When we are young, we are still very aware of our duties; our sense of honor is loud and flaunts its loud voice: we are honest and don't talk much.

"

Perhaps we don't even hate harshness if it is justified by a strong character and pure morals, and if it is accompanied by a sufficient amount of goodness.

"

I myself have lived like you or anyone else. In college, high school. Reminiscing about his imaginary torments and real joys is beautiful. Even the memory of Friday's paréj, which made our backs tingle, is beautiful to our dull gastronomic machinery. It was a good life. All imposed work was hateful, but it was only what taught us to work.

"

The simple, orderly life gives way to some Octondian wisdom, where we try to drown our intelligence in work; and a life spent in the world of abstractions or in the depths of the moral world leads to some whimsical wisdom. In short, we are doomed to kill our feelings in order to reach a late old age, or to die young, accepting the martyrdom of our passions. And this judgment can withstand our temper, with which he joked so cruelly, to whom we owe the model of all earthly creatures.

"

Instead of disturbing my pleasures with musings, I divide life itself into two parts; the first stage, my youth, is certainly pleasant, and the second, the old age that will probably come, I don't care, will be full of all sorts of bad self-indulgences.

"

Virtue! Let the ugly and the hunchback be happy with it, we'll leave it to them. What would they be, poor people, without it?

"

Every thinking man must stand under the banner of Christ. He alone sanctified the victory of the soul over matter, he alone enlightened us, what is this temporary world that separates us from God.

"

Skeptics are the most conscientious people in the world.

"

Women are just such that they always see only the faults of a talented person, and they discover all possible good qualities in a fool. They always have a kind heart for fools, because in that quality they fan their own frailties, while the presence of an excellent person only makes their imperfections more conspicuous.

"

The brilliant man doesn't say a word about his flame, the cunning one trumpets it and necessarily hits the target with it.

"

Learning itself is so good that it would be almost a sin to ask for any other reward from it, than what it gives with the sweet, beautiful nourishment of its children.

"

The human soul has a magical power, it can turn a straw into a diamond.

"

My enemies may be of just as much use to me as my friends.

"

It is enough for a young man to meet a woman who does not love him, or who loves him too much, for his whole life to be thrown out of whack. Happiness drains our strength, and unhappiness kills our virtues.

"

Even women who are said to be virtuous are sometimes carried away by this crazy heat of desire and passion, which comes to life in us against our will.

"

All exaggerations are siblings. These social monstrosities have the power that characterizes eddies: they lure us to them, as Saint Helena lured Napoleon; they dazzle, fascinate, and we want to look at their butts, without knowing why. Perhaps the idea of ​​infinity is hidden in the depths of these chasms, or perhaps it is a mask for human vanity, and isn't everything interesting to man as soon as it concerns him?

"

After the hours of work and the pleasures of creation, the tired artist sings something opposite, whether it be the divine seventh day of rest or Satan's infernal céco, so that he can counterbalance the work of his talent with the work of his senses.

"

The tyvornya is the embracing of everything, the whole of life, or rather, fighting with some unknown power, a monster.

"

At the moment of our execution, everyone believes that we are innocent, while the old man, who is left without money, has not even a spark of honor in the eyes of society.

"

- Blood bench, executioner is not for millionaires in the world! - (...) They are their own executioners!

"

In human life, beauty is a pleasant exception, a fantasy in which we want to believe at all costs.

"

Virtue is perhaps the propriety of the soul.

"

The parties en masse commit such vile acts that would bring shame on individual people.

"

We almost always find the truth with our hunches.

"

With gold (...) we can create feelings in our surroundings at our pleasure, which we may be longing for.

"

Love arouses in us a kind of religious devotion to ourselves; we honor another life in ourselves. And so misfortune becomes even greater with hope, because hope endures all suffering with us.

"

It is precisely these small events that are true comforters for prisoners, which escape the attention of those immersed in the flood of life.

"

The taller rolls easily to satisfy our mood, we only hit our teeth when it comes to purchasing something useful or necessary. We carelessly scatter the gold in the dancer's lap, but we delay the payment when the worker keeps a bill for us, the payment of which is waiting for a starving family. How many people wear a hundred-franc coat and wear a diamond button on their cane, who can dine on twenty-five sous! As if we could never buy the edges of vanity dearly enough!

"

The human will is a material force similar to steam, and (...) nothing in the moral world can stand against this power, as soon as a person learns to live with it, is able to concentrate, and is able to direct its current-like substance to souls. (...) Possessing this, man can modify all human things at will, not even excluding the absolute laws of nature.

"

Our thoughts are organic, self-contained beings that live in an invisible world and influence our destiny.

"

A woman needs excitement at all costs.

"

There is no expressive force in human language, no form of thought, whether it seeks expression through colors, marble, words or sounds, which could reflect the completeness, power, truth and immediacy of the feeling before our souls!

"

Nature, which creates born blind, can also create women who are deaf, blind and mute in love.

"

Destitutes cannot talk about their great sacrifices to women who live in a luxurious, elegant world. These women look at the world through a prism that paints both people and things as cute. (...) Immersed in beauty, they are indifferent to misfortune. In their eyes, a penny never means a million, but a million is easily counted as a penny.

"

Misfortune has a bottomless treasure trove.

"

Even the man who stumbles upon the ruins of his life's fortune finds some refuge.

"

Where misery has struck, there is no more shame, nor sin, nor virtue, nor spirit.

"

Without money and love, a person can still be master of himself, but the unfortunate man who is in love is no longer master of himself.

"

Does not the human soul, so similar in its caprices to modern chemistry, mix itself with terrible poisons from the sudden mixing of its pleasures, powers and thoughts? Don't many people perish, as if struck by lightning, from the power of some moral corrosive acid that suddenly spills over their inner world?

"

The consistent opposition is more than once entangled in (...) contradictions; because he does not consider it important to be right, but to tie the wheels of power.

"

The merit of a good deed is lost even by the smallest benefit derived from it.

"

Death doesn't rent a permanent apartment from anyone (...), it doesn't have time for it.

"

Faith, like power, must always descend from above, whether from the heavenly or social heights; and nowadays there is less faith in the upper classes than in the people, to whom God promised that for their patiently endured sufferings one day they would enter the kingdom of heaven.

"

Empires begin with a sword and end with an inkstand.

"

We always start from ourselves and approach people in such a way, rather than moving towards ourselves starting from people.

"

He who does not respect himself cannot live alone.

"

The language, the series of the greatest sentences, cannot be as varied, as elegantly solo, as the conversation of the eyes and the harmony of the smiles.

"

Only philosophers and poets really know the deep meaning of this already commonplace definition of love: selfishness in two. We love ourselves in the other.

"

All sorrow, all boredom evaporates from the soul if we cure it with the balmy antidote of an obsession. Those of you who can no longer drink from the cup of pleasure (as it is called at all times), start collecting something, whatever (you have already collected wall stickers!) and you will find golden happiness - converted into small change. An obsession turned into a thought is a pleasure!

"

The man without passion, the perfect true man: a monstrous figure; an angel whose wings haven't grown yet.

"

The judge seldom traces the origin of sin and misfortune back to its source. He sees only the destructive flood, and does not investigate who held the vessel from which the first drop spilled out.

"

"Today" is a big boy, but "tomorrow" is a coward and runs away from today's commitments.

"

In fact, it is not enough to be an honest person, it is necessary to be seen as such.

"

There is no other difference between doing good or evil than the peace or agitation of the conscience.

"

The proverb not unwisely links the three black clothes together: the priest's, the lawman's and the doctor's: the first heals the wound of the soul, the second the wallet, the third the body. They represent the three main manifestations of the Society's existence: conscience, possessions, and health.

"

The vocation of art is not to copy nature, but to express it!

"

We feel when someone loves us. Feeling permeates everything and travels through infinity.

"

It was as if he had experienced a dream, but a dream that fades away, but leaves behind a feeling of supernatural beauty in the soul, so that the person chases after it throughout the rest of his life.

"

A single day spent with you, a single day when I can look at you continuously, would be worth my life.

"

Love goes through an infinite number of transformations before it blends into our lives forever and indelibly paints it with its fiery color. Artistic analysis can never grasp the secret of this imperceptible confluence. True passion finds expression in screams, or, for a cold person, in bored sighs... Love emerges from a fresh spring, a bed of flowers, pebbles and hyacinths, like a stream, like a river, changes its color and nature from wave to wave, and finally immerses itself in the into an immeasurable ocean, in which feeble spirits see only monotony, but great souls immerse themselves in eternal contemplation. How could we dare to describe these temporary nuances of emotions, these infinitely precious nothingness, these words, the emphasis of which is poor in human language, these glances, which are more meaningful than even the richest poems! In each mysterious scene, when we imperceptibly catch fire for a woman, a chasm opens, in which all poetic works are submerged. Well, how could we return the living and mysterious vibrations of the soul with our marginal notes, when we don't even have the right words to paint the visible mysteries of beauty?

"

A woman is flirtatious until she falls in love.

"

Pity kills, it only makes us weaker in our weakness. Pity: trouble turned to honey, contempt in tenderness or tenderness in insult.

"

The look of the person from whom you ask for money affects you so awkwardly. There are loans that cost our honor, just as there are rejections from friends that rob us of our last illusion.

"

In a family circle, people always negotiate with misfortune: they get used to it, and hope makes cruelty bearable.

"

Envy loosens as many tongues as admiration freezes.

"

A diamond knows no property value.

"

A bad agreement is worth more than a good one.

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The education of poverty is huge and hard - he distributes his teachings with so many blows of the whip to great people, who all suffer in their childhood.

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The woman's unrequited passion fuels the man's vanity even if he does not like the woman.

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A playwright, and few people know this, consists of the following: first of all, an idea producer, who must invent the theme and build the frame of the play; then comes the wrestler who writes the play; and finally the collector, who sets the songs to music, collects the choruses and ensembles, and places them in their proper positions.

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Lack of talent has not stopped anyone from succeeding.

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Women's hearts remain a secret even to the smartest man.

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The sayings of great men are like gilded silver spoons that wear out with use: if we repeat them too much, they lose all their luster.

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Ingratitude is like trouble: one thing attracts another.

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Of all our habits, those rooted in vanity are the most lasting.

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Anyone who overshoots the target only wastes gunpowder.

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If people were told to their face what others are saying about them behind their backs, social life would become impossible.

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The will consumes us, the judgment corrupts us; rather, knowledge keeps our fragile organism in unceasing peaceful rest.

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Walking among the dead, we become dead.

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Anyone who has taken even a single step towards the green-posted table is just as little master of his hat as of himself, because after that single step, staff and cloak, as well as the wallet and, on top of that, the whole person are already at stake.

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There is nothing to be upset about when someone resorts to cards, but only when he sees nothing between himself and death at his last thaler.

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Politics is a secret set of the ugliest acts.

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No official or educational effort can ever replace the miracles of chance: a great man is always a miracle of chance.

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The bad thoughts that arise involuntarily arise from our imperfect nature and prove both the greatness and the dangers of human destiny.

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Man is a child of the century in which he was born, not of the century in which he is buried.

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Honesty, like all our feelings, could be divided into two types: negative and positive. Negative honesty (...) who remain honest until an opportunity to get rich presents itself. Positive honesty is the honesty of a man who is constantly knee-deep in temptation and yet does not fail.

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A life drowning in mundanity, which lacks the excitement of coincidences, eventually wears out even the most adventurous spirit.

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A woman is like a lute that reveals its secrets only to those who can play it well.

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True love rules us mainly through memory.

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It is rooted in human nature to suffer everything with those who are ready to suffer everything out of true humility, tenderness or indifference.

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A mother's heart is a deep chasm, at the bottom of which forgiveness is always found.

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Parisian love is quite different from any other kind of love. Neither the men nor the women put on appearances adorned with clichés, with which it is customary to mask the so-called altruistic emotions out of sheer decency. In Paris, a woman must not only satisfy the heart and the senses. (...) Be young, rich and noble, or even more if you can; the more incense you burn on the altar of your idol, the more gracious he will be to you if you do have an idol. (...) Overflowing emotion is the poetry of attic rooms; without this, without wealth, what would love be?

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Nothing puts a bigger obstacle in the way of your good relationship with others than not being able to reconcile with yourself.

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Can a party be in worse trouble than being represented by worriers, when even its ideals are accused of staleness?

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No matter how extreme the page of an ideological movement is, it will never satisfy the most extreme party supporters.

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The newspaper, instead of being a sacred vocation, became a tool of the parties; asset to business; and like all business it is dishonest and in bad faith.

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Bureaucracy is a giant machine managed by dwarfs.