Produced by David Widger





QUOTES AND IMAGES: THE FRENCH IMMORTALS



THE FRENCH IMMORTALS


CONTENTS

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




THE INK STAIN, By Rene Bazin



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

Came not in single spies, but in
battalions

Distrust first impulse

Felix culpa

Happy men don't need company

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

He always loved to pass for being
overwhelmed with work

I don't call that fishing

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

LendsI should say gives

Men forget sooner

Natural only when alone, and talk well
only to themselves

Obstacles are the salt of all our joys

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

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

Silence, alas! is not the reproof of
kings alone

Skilful actor, who apes all the
emotions while feeling none

Sorrows shrink into insignificance as
the horizon broadens

Surprise goes for so much in what we
admire

The very smell of books is improving

The looks of the young are always full
of the future

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

To be your own guide doubles your
pleasure

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

You must always first get the tobacco
to burn evenly

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




JACQUELINE, By Therese Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)



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

A mother's geese are always swans

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

Bathers, who exhibited themselves in
all degrees of ugliness

Blow which annihilates our supreme
illusion

Death is not that last sleep

Fool (there is no cure for that
infirmity)

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

Great interval between a dream and its
execution

Hang out the bush, but keep no tavern

His sleeplessness was not the insomnia
of genius

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

Musicso often dangerous to married
happiness

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

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

Old womenat least thirty years old!

Pride supplies some sufferers with
necessary courage

Seemed to enjoy themselves, or made
believe they did

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

Small women ought not to grow stout

Sympathetic listening, never having
herself anything to say

The bandage love ties over the eyes
of men

The worst husband is always better
than none

This unending warfare we call love

Unwilling to leave him to the repose
he needed

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

Women who are thirty-five should never
weep




GERFAUT, By Charles de Bernard



Antipathy for her husband bordering
upon aversion

Attractions that difficulties give
to pleasure

Attractive abyss of drunkenness

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

Despotic tone which a woman assumes
when sure of her empire

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

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

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

Lady who requires urging, although she
is dying to sing

Let them laugh that win!

Let ultra-modesty destroy poetry

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

Mania for fearing that she may be
compromised

Material in you to make one of Cooper's
redskins

Misfortunes never come single

No woman is unattainable, except when
she loves another

Obstinacy of drunkenness

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

Regards his happiness as a proof of
superiority

She said yes, so as not to say no

These are things that one admits only
to himself

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

Topics that occupy people who meet for
the first time

Trying to conceal by a smile (a blush)

When one speaks of the devil he appears

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

You are playing 'who loses wins!'





COSMOPOLIS, By Paul Bourget



Conditions of blindness so voluntary
that they become complicity

Despotism natural to puissant
personalities

Egyptian tobacco, mixed with opium and
saltpetre

Follow their thoughts instead of
heeding objects

Has as much sense as the handle of a
basket

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

I no longer love you

Imagine what it would be never to have
been born

Mediocre sensibility

Melancholy problem of the birth and
death of love

Mobile and complaisant conscience had
already forgiven himself

No flies enter a closed mouth

Not an excuse, but an explanation of
your conduct

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

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

Pitiful checker-board of life

Scarcely a shade of gentle
condescension

Sufficed him to conceive the plan of a
reparation

That suffering which curses but does
not pardon

That you can aid them in leading better
lives?

The forests have taught man liberty

There is an intelligent man, who never
questions his ideas

There is always and everywhere a duty
to fulfil

Thinking it better not to lie on minor
points

Too prudent to risk or gain much

Walked at the rapid pace characteristic
of monomaniacs

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




PRINCE ZILAH, By Jules Claretie



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

All defeats have their geneses

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

Anonymous, that velvet mask of
scandal-mongers

At every step the reality splashes you
with mud

Bullets are not necessarily on the side
of the right

Does one ever forget?

Foreigners are more Parisian than the
Parisians themselves

History is written, not made.

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

If well-informed people are to be
believe

Insanity is, perhaps, simply the ideal
realized

It is so good to know nothing, nothing,
nothing

Let the dead past bury its dead!

Life is a tempest

Man who expects nothing of life except
its ending

Nervous natures, as prompt to hope as
to despair

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

Not only his last love, but his only
love

Nothing ever astonishes me

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

Pessimism of to-day sneering at his
confidence of yesterday

Playing checkers, that mimic warfare of
old men

Poverty brings wrinkles

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

Superstition which forbids one to
proclaim his happiness

Taken the times as they are

The Hungarian was created on horseback

There were too many discussions, and
not enough action

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

What matters it how much we suffer

Why should I read the newspapers?

Willingly seek a new sorrow

Would not be astonished at anything

You suffer?  Is fate so just as that





A ROMANCE OF YOUTH, By Francois Coppee



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

Dreams, instead of living

Egotists and cowards always have a
reason for everything

Eternally condemned to kill each other
in order to live

Fortunate enough to keep those one
loves

God forgive the timid and the prattler!

Good form consists, above all things,
in keeping silent

Happiness exists only by snatches and
lasts only a moment

He does not know the miseries of
ambition and vanity

He almost regretted her

How sad these old memorics are in the
autumn

Inoffensive tree which never had harmed
anybody

Intimate friend, whom he has known for
about five minutes

It was all delightfully terrible!

Learned that one leaves college almost
ignorant

Mild, unpretentious men who let
everybody run over them

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

Never travel when the heart is
troubled!

Not more honest than necessary

Now his grief was his wife, and lived
with him

Paint from nature

Poor France of Jeanne d'Arc and of
Napoleon

Redouble their boasting after each
defeat

Society people condemned to hypocrisy
and falsehood

Take their levity for heroism

Tediousness seems to ooze out through
their bindings

The leaves fall!  the leaves fall!

The sincere age when one thinks aloud

Tired smile of those who have not long
to live

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

Universal suffrage, with its accustomed
intelligence

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

Very young, and was in love with love

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

Were certain against all reason

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




FROMONT AND RISLER, By Alphonse Daudet



A man may forgive, but he never forgets

Abundant details which he sometimes
volunteered

Affectation of indifference

Always smiling condescendingly

Charm of that one day's rest and its
solemnity

Clashing knives and forks mark time

Convent of Saint Joseph, four shoes
under the bed!

Deeming every sort of occupation
beneath him

Dreams of wealth and the disasters that
immediately followed

Exaggerated dramatic pantomime

Faces taken by surprise allow their
real thoughts to be seen

He fixed the time mentally when he
would speak

Little feathers fluttering for an
opportunity to fly away

Make for themselves a horizon of the
neighboring walls and roofs

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

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

She was of those who disdain no
compliment

Such artificial enjoyment, such idiotic
laughter

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

Terrible revenge she would take
hereafter for her sufferings

The poor must pay for all their
enjoyments

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

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

Wiping his forehead ostentatiously

Word "sacrifice," so vague on careless
lips

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




CINQ MARS, By Alfred de Vigny



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

A queen's country is where her throne
is

Adopted fact is always better composed
than the real one

Advantage that a calm temper gives one
over men

All that he said, I had already thought

Always the first word which is the most
difficult to say

Ambition is the saddest of all hopes

Art is the chosen truth

Artificialities of style of that period

Artistic Truth, more lofty than the
True

As Homer says, "smiling under tears"

Assume with others the mien they wore
toward him

But how avenge one's self on silence?

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

Daylight is detrimental to them

Deny the spirit of self-sacrifice

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

Doubt, the greatest misery of love

Friendship exists only in independence
and a kind of equality

Happy is he who does not outlive his
youth

Hatred of everything which is superior
to myself

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

Hermits can not refrain from inquiring
what men say of them

History too was a work of art

I have burned all the bridges behind me

In pitying me he forgot himself

In every age we laugh at the costume of
our fathers

In times like these we must see all and
say all

It is not now what it used to be

It is too true that virtue also has its
blush

Lofty ideal of woman and of love

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

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

Monsieur, I know that I have lived too
long

Neither idealist nor realist

Never interfered in what did not
concern him

No writer had more dislike of mere
pedantry

Offices will end by rendering great
names vile

Princes ought never to be struck,
except on the head

Princesses ceded like a town, and must
not even weep

Principle that art implied selection

Recommended a scrupulous observance of
nature

Remedy infallible against the plague
and against reserve

Reproaches are useless and cruel if the
evil is done

Should be punished for not having known
how to punish

So strongly does force impose upon men

Tears for the future

The great leveller has swung a long
scythe over France

The most in favor will be the soonest
abandoned by him

The usual remarks prompted by
imbecility on such occasions

These ideas may serve as opium to
produce a calm

They tremble while they threaten

They have believed me incapable because
I was kind

They loved not as you love, eh?

This popular favor is a cup one must
drink

This was the Dauphin, afterward Louis
XIV

True talent paints life rather than the
living

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

Urbain Grandier

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

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

Yes, we are in the way here




M.M. AND BEBE, By Gustave Droz



A ripe husband, ready to fall from the
tree

Affection is catching

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

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

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

As regards love, intention and deed are
the same

But she thinks she is affording you
pleasure

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

Do not seek too much

Emotion when one does not share it

First impression is based upon a number
of trifles

He Would Have Been Forty Now

Hearty laughter which men affect to
assist digestion

How many things have not people been
proud of

How rich we find ourselves when we
rummage in old drawers

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

I would give two summers for a single
autumn

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

I came here for that express purpose

I am not wandering through life, I am
marching on

Ignorant of everything, undesirous of
learning anything

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

It (science) dreams, too; it supposes

It is silly to blush under certain
circumstances

Learned to love others by embracing
their own children

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

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

Man is but one of the links of an
immense chain

Rather do not givemake yourself
sought after

Reckon yourself happy if in your
husband you find a lover

Recollection of past dangers to
increase the present joy

Respect him so that he may respect you

Shelter himself in the arms of the weak
and recover courage

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

The heart requires gradual changes

The future that is rent away

The recollection of that moment lasts
for a lifetime

The future promises, it is the present
that pays

Their love requires a return

There are pious falsehoods which the
Church excuses

Ties that unite children to parents are
unloosed

Ties which unite parents to children
are broken

To be able to smoke a cigar without
being sick

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

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

When time has softened your grief

Why mankind has chosen to call marriage
a man-trap




MONSIEUR DE CAMORS, By Octave Feuillet



A man never should kneel unless sure of
rising a conqueror

A defensive attitude is never agreeable
to a man

Bad to fear the opinion of people one
despises

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

Camors refused, hesitated, made
objections, and consented

Confounding progress with discord,
liberty with license

Contempt for men is the beginning of
wisdom

Cried out, with the blunt candor of his
age

Dangers of liberty outweighed its
benefits

Demanded of him imperativelythe time
of day

Determined to cultivate ability rather
than scrupulousness

Disenchantment which follows possession

Do not get angry.  Rarely laugh, and
never weep

Every one is the best judge of his own
affairs

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

Every cause that is in antagonism with
its age commits suicide

Godor no principles!

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

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

Inconstancy of heart is the special
attribute of man

Intemperance of her zeal and the
acrimony of her bigotry

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

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

Never can make revolutions with gloves
on

Once an excellent remedy, is a
detestable regimen

One of those pious persons who always
think evil

Pleasures of an independent code of
morals

Police regulations known as religion

Principles alone, without faith in some
higher sanction

Property of all who are strong enough
to stand it

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

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

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

Suspicion that he is a feeble human
creature after all!

There will be no more belief in Christ
than in Jupiter

Ties that become duties where we only
sought pleasures

Truth is easily found.  I shall read
all the newspapers

Two persons who desired neither to
remember nor to forget

Whether in this world one must be a
fanatic or nothing

Whole world of politics and religion
rushed to extremes

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

You can not make an omelette without
first breaking the eggs




THE RED LILY, By Anatole France



A woman is frank when she does not lie
uselessly

A hero must be human.  Napoleon was
human

Anti-Semitism is making fearful
progress everywhere

Brilliancy of a fortune too new

Curious to know her face of that day

Disappointed her to escape the danger
she had feared

Do you think that people have not
talked about us?

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

Does one ever possess what one loves?

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

Each was moved with self-pity

Everybody knows about that

Fringe which makes an unlovely border
to the city

Gave value to her affability by not
squandering it

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

He studied until the last moment

He is not intelligent enough to doubt

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

He knew now the divine malady of love

Her husband had become quite bearable

His habit of pleasing had prolonged his
youth

(Housemaid) is trained to respect my
disorder

I love myself because you love me

I can forget you only when I am with
you

I wished to spoil our past

I feel in them (churches) the grandeur
of nothingness

I have to pay for the happiness you
give me

I gave myself to him because he loved
me

I haven't a taste, I have tastes

I have known things which I know no
more

I do not desire your friendship

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

Immobility of time

Impatient at praise which was not
destined for himself

Incapable of conceiving that one might
talk without an object

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

It is an error to be in the right too
soon

It was too late: she did not wish to
win

Jealous without having the right to be
jealous

Kisses and caresses are the effort of
a delightful despair

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

Laughing in every wrinkle of his face

Learn to live without desire

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

Life as a whole is too vast and too
remote

Life is made up of just such trifles

Life is not a great thing

Little that we can do when we are
powerful

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

Love was only a brief intoxication

Lovers never separate kindly

Made life give all it could yield

Magnificent air of those beggars of
whom small towns are proud

Miserable beings who contribute to the
grandeur of the past

Nobody troubled himself about that
originality

None but fools resisted the current

Not everything is known, but everything
is said

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

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

One who first thought of pasting a
canvas on a panel

One is never kind when one is in love

One should never leave the one whom one
loves

Picturesquely ugly

Recesses of her mind which she
preferred not to open

Relatives whom she did not know and who
irritated her

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

She pleased society by appearing to
find pleasure in it

She is happy, since she likes to
remember

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

Simple people who doubt neither
themselves nor others

Since she was in love, she had lost
prudence

So well satisfied with his reply that
he repeated it twice

Superior men sometimes lack cleverness

That sort of cold charity which is
called altruism

That if we live the reason is that we
hope

That absurd and generous fury for
ownership

The most radical breviary of scepticism
since Montaigne

The door of one's room opens on the
infinite

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

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

The violent pleasure of losing

The discouragement which the
irreparable gives

The real support of a government is the
Opposition

The politician never should be in
advance of circumstances

There is nothing good except to ignore
and to forget

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

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

To be beautiful, must a woman have that
thin form

Trying to make Therese admire what she
did not know

Umbrellas, like black turtles under the
watery skies

Unfortunate creature who is the
plaything of life

Was I not warned enough of the sadness
of everything?

We are too happy; we are robbing life

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

Whether they know or do not know, they
talk

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

You must take me with my own soul!




ABBE CONSTANTIN, By Ludovic Halevey



Ancient pillars of stone, embrowned and
gnawed by time

And they are shoulders which ought to
be seen

Believing themselves irresistible

But she will give me nothing but money

Duty, simply accepted and simply
discharged

Frenchman has only one real luxuryhis
revolutions

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

Great difference between dearly and
very much

Had not told allone never does tell
all

He led the brilliant and miserable
existence of the unoccupied

If there is one! (a paradise)

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

Love and tranquillity seldom dwell at
peace in the same heart

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

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

One half of his life belonged to the
poor

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

Succeeded in wearying him by her
importunities and tenderness

The women have enough religion for the
men

The history of good people is often
monotonous or painful

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




CHRYSANTHEME, By Pierre Loti



Ah! the natural perversity of inanimate
things

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

Dull hours spent in idle and diffuse
conversation

Efforts to arrange matters we succeed
often only in disarranging

Found nothing that answered to my
indefinable expectations

Habit turns into a makeshift of
attachment

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

Irritating laugh which is peculiar to
Japan

Japanese habit of expressing myself
with excessive politeness

Ordinary, trivial, every-day objects

Prayers swallowed like pills by
invalids at a distance

Seeking for a change which can no
longer be found

Trees, dwarfed by a Japanese process

When the inattentive spirits are not
listening

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





CONSCIENCE, By Hector Malot



As ignorant as a schoolmaster

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

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

Conscience is a bad weighing-machine

Conscience is only an affair of
environment and of education

Find it more easy to make myself feared
than loved

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

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

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

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

In his eyes everything was decided by
luck

Intelligent persons have no remorse

It is the first crime that costs

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

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

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

Looking for a needle in a bundle of hay

Neither so simple nor so easy as they
at first appeared

One does not judge those whom one loves

People whose principle was never to pay
a doctor

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

Reason before the deed, and not after

Repeated and explained what he had
already said and explained

She could not bear contempt

The strong walk alone because they need
no one

We are so unhappy that our souls are
weak against joy

We weep, we do not complain

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

You love me, therefore you do not know
me




ZIBELINE, By Phillipe de Massa



All that was illogical in our social
code

Ambiguity has no place, nor has
compromise

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

Chain so light yesterday, so heavy
to-day

Every man is his own master in his
choice of liaisons

If I do not give all I give nothing

Indulgence of which they stand in need
themselves

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

Men admired her; the women sought some
point to criticise

Only a man, wavering and changeable

Ostensibly you sit at the feast without
paying the cost

Paris has become like a little country
town in its gossip

The night brings counsel

Their Christian charity did not extend
so far as that

There are mountains that we never climb
but once

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




THE CHILD OF A CENTURY, By Alfred de Musset



A terrible danger lurks in the
knowledge of what is possible

Accustomed to call its disguise virtue

Adieu, my son, I love you and I die

All philosophy is akin to atheism

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

And when love is sure of itself and
knows response

Because you weep, you fondly imagine
yourself innocent

Become corrupt, and you will cease to
suffer

Began to forget my own sorrow in my
sympathy for her

Beware of disgust, it is an incurable
evil

Can any one prevent a gossip

Cold silence, that negative force

Contrive to use proud disdain as a
shield

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

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

Do they think they have invented what
they see

Each one knows what the other is about
to say

Fool who destroys his own happiness

Force itself, that mistress of the
world

Funeral processions are no longer
permitted

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

Good and bad days succeeded each other
almost regularly

Great sorrows neither accuse nor
blasphemethey listen

Grief itself was for her but a means of
seducing

Happiness of being pursued

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

He lives only in the body

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

Human weakness seeks association

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

I can not love her, I can not love
another

I boasted of being worse than I really
was

I neither love nor esteem sadness

I do not intend either to boast or
abase myself

Ignorance into which the Greek clergy
plunged the laity

In what do you believe?

Indignation can solace grief and
restore happiness

Is he a dwarf or a giant

Is it not enough to have lived?

It is a pity that you must seek
pastimes

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

Man who suffers wishes to make her whom
he loves suffer

Men doubted everything: the young men
denied everything

No longer esteemed her highly enough to
be jealous of her

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

Perfection does not exist

Pure caprice that I myself mistook for
a flash of reason

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

Reading the Memoirs of Constant

Resorted to exaggeration in order to
appear original

Sceptic regrets the faith he has lost
the power to regain

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

She pretended to hope for the best

Sometimes we seem to enjoy unhappiness

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

St. Augustine

Suffered, and yet took pleasure in it

Suspicions that are ever born anew

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

There are two different men in you

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

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

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

What you take for love is nothing more
than desire

What human word will ever express thy
slightest caress

When passion sways man, reason follows
him weeping and warning

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

Wine suffuses the face as if to prevent
shame appearing there

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

You play with happiness as a child
plays with a rattle

You turn the leaves of dead books

Your great weapon is silence

Youth is to judge of the world from
first impressions




SERGE PANINE, By George Ohnet



A man weeps with difficulty before a woman

A uniform is the only garb which can hide
poverty honorably

Antagonism to plutocracy and hatred of
aristocrats

Because they moved, they thought they were
progressing

Cowardly in trouble as he had been insolent
in prosperity

Enough to be nobody's unless I belong to him

Even those who do not love her desire to
know her

Everywhere was feverish excitement, dissipation,
and nullity

Flayed and roasted alive by the critics

Forget a dream and accept a reality

Hard workers are pitiful lovers

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

He was very unhappy at being misunderstood

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

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

I don't pay myself with words

Implacable self-interest which is the law of
the world

In life it is only nonsense that is
common-sense

Is a man ever poor when he has two arms?

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

It was a relief when they rose from the table

Men of pleasure remain all their lives
mediocre workers

Money troubles are not mortal

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

Negroes, all but monkeys!

Nothing that provokes laughter more than a
disappointed lover

One amuses one's self at the risk of dying

Patience, should he encounter a dull page
here or there

Romanticism still ferments beneath the
varnish of Naturalism

Sacrifice his artistic leanings to popular
caprice

Scarcely was one scheme launched when another
idea occurred

She would have liked the world to be in mourning

Suffering is a human law; the world is an arena

Talk with me sometimes.  You will not chatter
trivialities

The guilty will not feel your blows, but the
innocent

The uncontested power which money brings

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

Unqualified for happiness

We had taken the dream of a day for eternal
happiness

What is a man who remains useless

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

You are talking too much about it to be
sincere




AN "ATTIC" PHILOSOPHER, By Emile Souvestre



Always to mistake feeling for evidence

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

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

Attach a sense of remorse to each of my
pleasures

Brought them up to poverty

But above these ruins rises a calm and
happy face

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

Coffee is the grand work of a
bachelor's housekeeping

Contemptuous pride of knowledge

Death, that faithful friend of the
wretched

Defeat and victory only displace each
other by turns

Did not think the world was so great

Do they understand what makes them so
gay?

Each of us regards himself as the
mirror of the community

Ease with which the poor forget their
wretchedness

Every one keeps his holidays in his own
way

Fame and power are gifts that are
dearly bought

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

Fear of losing a moment from business

Finishes his sin thoroughly before he
begins to repent

Fortune sells what we believe she gives

Her kindness, which never sleeps

Houses are vessels which take mere
passengers

Hubbub of questions which waited for no
reply

I make it a rule never to have any hope

Ignorant of what there is to wish for

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

Make himself a name:  he becomes public
property

Moderation is the great social virtue

More stir than work

My patronage has become her property

No one is so unhappy as to have nothing
to give

Not desirous to teach goodness

Nothing is dishonorable which is useful

Our tempers are like an opera-glass

Poverty, you see, is a famous
schoolmistress

Power of necessity

Prisoners of work

Progress can never be forced on without
danger

Question is not to discover what will
suit us

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

Ruining myself, but we must all have
our Carnival

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

Sensible man, who has observed much and
speaks little

So much confidence at first, so much
doubt at las

Sullen tempers are excited by the
patience of their victims

The happiness of the wise man costs but
little

The man in power gives up his peace

Two thirds of human existence are
wasted in hesitation

Virtue made friends, but she did not
take pupils

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

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

What have you done with the days God
granted you

What a small dwelling joy can live

You may know the game by the lair




A WOODLAND QUEEN, By Andre Theuriet



Accustomed to hide what I think

Amusements they offered were either
wearisome or repugnant

Consoled himself with one of the pious
commonplaces

Dreaded the monotonous regularity of
conjugal life

Fawning duplicity

Had not been spoiled by Fortune's gifts

How small a space man occupies on the
earth

Hypocritical grievances

I am not in the habit of consulting the
law

I measure others by myself

It does not mend matters to give way
like that

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

More disposed to discover evil than
good

Nature's cold indifference to our
sufferings

Never is perfect happiness our lot

Opposing his orders with steady,
irritating inertia

Others found delight in the most
ordinary amusements

Plead the lie to get at the truth

Sensitiveness and disposition to
self-blame

The ease with which he is forgotten

There are some men who never have had
any childhood

Those who have outlived their illusions

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

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

Toast and white wine (for breakfast)

Vague hope came over him that all would
come right

Vexed, act in direct contradiction to
their own wishes

Women: they are more bitter than death

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

You have considerable patience for a
lover

You must be pleased with yourselfthat
is more essential