Quotes from Guy de Maupassant

Institutionalised love always looks down on her more liberal sister

Viata este un munte. Atata timp cat urci, te uiti spre varf si esti fericit, dar cand ajungi pe creasta, zaresti dintr-odata coborasul si sfarsitul care este moartea. E foarte departe cand urci, dar e foarte aproape cand cobori.

The air of Paris is quite different from any other. There's something about it which thrills and excites and intoxicates you, and in some strange way makes you want to dance and do all sorts of other silly things. As soon as I get out of the train, it's just as if I had drunk a bottle of champagne. What a time one could have surrounded by artists! How happy those lucky people must be, the great men who have made a name in a city like Paris! What a wonderful life they have!

First my husband, then my parents died. After that I lost my two sisters. When death comes to someone's home it's as if it wants to get as much done as quickly as possible to save coming again for a long time.

Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're looking towards the top and you feel happy; but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death is at the end of it all. It's slow going up but quick going down.

There can be no doubt that loneliness is dangerous to active minds.

Ah! Those silly songs make us lose our heads; and, believe me, never marry a woman who sings in the country, especially if she sings the song of Musette!

But she shook with rage, and got up one of those conjugal scenes which make a peaceable man dread the domestic hearth more than a battlefield where bullets are raining.

Mais, comme il éprouvait une peine infinie à découvrir des idées, il prit la spécialité des déclamations sur la décadence des moeurs sur l'abaissement des caractères, l'affaissement du patriotisme et l'anémie de l'honneur français. (Il avait trouvé le mot anémie dont il était fier.)

Her name was Marroca, probably her maiden name, and she pronounced it as though it had fifteen r's in it.

A pro? v?bec se chovat urážlivÄ› k nÄ›komu, na kom jsme úplnÄ› závislí? To by nebylo v?bec hrdinství, nýbrž jen nerozvážná smÄ›lost.

GeçmiÅŸ beni çekiyor, bugün ise korkutuyor; çünkü gelecek ölü. Olan bitene özlem duyuyor, yaÅŸananlar için aÄŸl?yorum. Zaman?, saati durdurmak istiyorum; ancak zaman geçiyor, ak?p gidiyor, yar?n?n boÅŸluÄŸunu doldurmak için her saniye benden çal?yor ve ben bir kez daha hayata gelmeyeceÄŸim.

Our senses are fairies who work the miracle of changing that movement into noise, and by that metamorphosis give birth to music, which makes the mute agitation of nature a harmony

She hardly gave a thought to Julien; nothing in him surprised her any longer. But the double treachery of the Countess, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone in the world was a traitor, a liar, a deceiver, and tears came into her eyes. One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.

Then she added, no doubt in answer to her own thoughts: 'You see, life is never as good or as bad as one thinks.'  

What do you want? he then asked her. And with clenched teeth, and trembling with anger, she replied: I want--I want you to marry me, as you promised. But he only laughed and replied: Oh! if a man were to marry all the girls with whom he has made a slip, he would have more than enough to do.

Death need not be sad, it should be a matter of indifference.

His life had gone by without adventures, without passions, almost without hopes. The facility of dreaming, planted in every man, had never blossomed in the narrow bed of his ambitions.

March 20th. It is done. He was guillotined this morning. He made a good end, very good. It gave me infinite pleasure. How sweet it is to see a man's head cut off! The blood spurted out like a wave, like a wave. Oh, if I could, I would have liked to have bathed in it! What intoxicating ecstasy to crouch below it, to receive it in my hair and on my face, and rise up all crimson, all crimson! Ah, if people knew!

Je n'ai plus aucune force, aucun courage, aucune domination sur moi aucun pouvoir même de mettre en mouvement ma volonté. Je ne peux plus vouloir ; mais quelqu'un veut pour moi ; et j'obéis.

She removed the wraps, which covered her shoulders, before the glass, so as once more to see herself in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She had no longer the necklace around her neck!

How small a thing is needed to make or ruin us!

Monsieur Lerebour was short, round and jovial, with the joviality of a shopkeeper who liked to do himself well. His wife, who was thin, self-willed and perpetually discontented, had still not succeeded in overcoming her husband's good humour.

She was pretty and, even more, she was smart, and she had a divine figure according to all accounts. He fell in love with her, as a man always falls in love with any attractive woman whom he sees a lot of.