"We breathe love as we breathe air; we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us."
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Quote collection
Guy de Maupassant quotes (page 3 of 5)
85 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The simplest of women are wonderful liars who can extricate themselves from the most difficult dilemmas with a skill bordering on genius."
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"Were a man to spend only one day in Sicily and ask, "What must one see?" I would answer him without hesitation, "Taormina." It is only a landscape, but a landscape where you find everything on earth that seems made to seduce the eyes, the mind and the imagination."
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"How weak our mind is; how quickly it is terrified and unbalanced as soon as we are confronted with a small, incomprehensible fact. Instead of dismissing the problem with: "We do not understand because we cannot find the cause," we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers."
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"History, that excitable and unreliable old lady."
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"Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all."
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"Sometimes our thoughts turn back toward a corner in a forest, or the end of a bank, or an orchard powdered with flowers, seen but a single time on some happy day, yet remaining in our hearts and leaving in soul and body an unappeased desire which is not to be forgotten, a feeling that we have just rubbed elbows with happiness."
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"The bed comprehends our whole life, for we were born in it, we live in it, and we shall die in it"
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"I love the night passionately. I love it as I love my country, or my mistress, with an instinctive, deep, and unshakeable love. I love it with all my senses: I love to see it, I love to breathe it in, I love to open my ears to its silence, I love my whole body to be caressed by its blackness. Skylarks sing in the sunshine, the blue sky, the warm air, in the fresh morning light. The owl flies by night, a dark shadow passing through the darkness; he hoots his sinister, quivering hoot, as though he delights in the intoxicating black immensity of space."
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"Whatever you want to say, there is only one word to express it, only one verb to give it movement, only one adjective to qualify it."
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"A human being - what is a human being? Everything and nothing. Through the power of thought it can mirror everything it experiences. Through memory and knowledge it becomes a microcosm, carrying the world within itself. A mirror of things, a mirror of facts. Each human being becomes a little universe within the universe!"
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"One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death."
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"Anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of enemies."
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"Love is always love, come whence it may. A heart that beats at your approach, an eye that weeps when you go away are things so rare, so sweet, so precious that they must never be despised."
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"The public is composed of numerous groups whose cry to us writers is: 'Comfort me.' 'Amuse me.' 'Touch my sympathies.' 'Make me sad.' 'Make me dream.' 'Make me laugh.' 'Make me shiver.' 'Make me weep.' 'Make me think.'"
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"I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing"
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"The essence of life is the smile of round female bottoms, under the shadow of cosmic boredom."
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"To avoid each other, their eyes had developed an amazing mobility with all the cunning of enemies fearful of meeting each other head on."
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"You'll find that my coquetry is quite impartial, which allows me to keep my friends."
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"The English have only three sauces - a white one, a brown one and a yellow one, and none of them have any flavor whatever."
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