Quotes from Isidore Ducasse Lautreamont

Poetry must be made by all and not by one.

Real sorrow is incompatible with hope. No matter how great that sorrow may be, hope raises it one hundred cubits higher.

It is a power stronger than will. Could a stone escape from the laws of gravity? Impossible. Impossible, for evil to form an alliance with good.

Taste is the fundamental quality which sums up all other qualities. It is the ne plus ultra of the intelligence.

Although according to certain philosophers it is quite difficult to distinguish the jester from the melancholic, life itself being a comic drama or a dramatic comedy.

Farewell until eternity, where you and I shall not find ourselves together.

As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table.

Melancholy and sadness are the start of doubt... doubt is the beginning of despair despair is the cruel beginning of the differing degrees of wickedness.

Throughout the centuries, man has considered himself beautiful. I rather suppose that man only believes in his own beauty out of pride that he is not really beautiful and he suspects this himself for why does he look on the face of his fellow-man with such scorn?

It is a power stronger than will. Could a stone escape from the laws of gravity? Impossible. Impossible, for evil to form an alliance with good.

Taste is the fundamental quality which sums up all the other qualities. It is the nec plus ultra of the intelligence. Through this alone is genius the supreme health and balance of all the faculties.

When I write down my thoughts, they do not escape me. This action makes me remember my strength which I forget at all times. I educate myself proportionately to my captured thought. I aim only to distinguish the contradiction between my mind and nothingness.

Melancholy and sadness are the start of doubt...doubt is the beginning of despair; despair is the cruel beginning of the differing degrees of wickedness.