Quotes from Jules Renard

As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to love it more and more.

I am never bored; to be bored is an insult to one's self.

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

There are no friends; only moments of friendship.

Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.

Wrinkles are engraved smiles.

if I were to begin my life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more.

the important people in our lives leave imprints. they may die or go in the physical realm, but they are always there in your heart, because they helped form your heart

The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.

Paradise does not exist, but we must nonetheless strive to be worthy of it.

Don't tell a woman she's pretty; tell her there's no other woman like her, and all roads will open to you

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.

Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.

If money does not make you happy, give it back

If one were to build the house of happiness, the largest space would be the waiting room.

Posterity! Why should people be less stupid tomorrow than they are today?

Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.

God does not believe in our God.

It is when we are faced with death that we turn most bookish.

In the most complete friendship there is always a little empty space, like the space in an egg.

I can't get around this dilemma: I have a horror of troubles, but they whip me up, they make me talented. Peace and well-being, on the contrary, paralyze me. Either be a nobody, or everlastingly plagued.

At the bottom of all patriotism there is war: that is why I am no patriot.

I have no religion,' says Borneau, 'but I respect the religion of others. Religion is sacred.' Why this privilege, this immunity?... A believer creates God in his own image; if he is ugly, his God will be morally ugly. Why should moral ugliness be respectable?

L' amour est comme un sablier, avec le coeur remplir le vide du cerveau