Quote collection
176 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores?"
"There is only one sex. A man and a woman are so entirely the same thing that one can scarcely understand the subtle reasons for sex distinctions with which our minds are filled."
"Simplicity is the essence of the great, the true, the beautiful in art."
"It is love, not faith, that moves mountains."
"Love without reverence and enthusiasm is only friendship."
"We must have a passion in life."
"Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age."
"I was born to love - but none of you wanted to believe it, and that misunderstanding was crucial in forming my character. It's true that nature was strangely inconsistent in giving me a warm heart, but also a face that was like a stone mask and a tongue that was heavy and slow. She refused me what she bestowed freely on even the most loutish of my fellow men. . . . People judged my inner character by my outer covering, and like a sterile fruit, I withered under the rough husk I couldn't slough off."
"One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows of the necessary ingredients of happiness-simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain."
"Vanity is the quicksand of reason."
"Humanity is outraged in me and with me. We must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation, which is one of the most passionate forms of love."
"Experience is always a trustworthy guide; it may not tell you everything, but it never lies."
"Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life."
"A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images."
"I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one."
"Work is not man's punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure."
"Believe in no other God than the one who insists on justice and equality among men."
"The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women."
"A child motivated by competitive ideals will grow into a man without conscience, shame, or true dignity."
"The capacity for passion is both cruel and divine."