Characters are needed in a novel not to see people as they are, but to get to know the author who is like no one else.
The pessimist, faced with a choice between two evils, chooses both.
Having sympathy for the underdog is somewhat easier. Sympathizing with an idea is much more difficult.
It's not just the most impenetrable people who are judged by appearances.
There seems to be a certain strange relationship between piety and bad rhymes.
The real mystery of life is in the visible, not the hidden.
Polygamy? How poetic it is to have one husband or wife and to love several.
Sometimes the least pleasure, in the theater, makes your play. More than once I saw spectators who were much more interesting than the actors, and I heard in the foyer a dialogue that exceeded what I heard on the stage.
Depravity is a myth invented by virtuous people to explain the strange attraction between some people.
After a good meal you forgive everything, even your brother.
Epigonism is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Burying her third husband, she went blonde out of desperation.
Read Balzac aright, and our present friends will prove but shadows, and our acquaintances, shadows of shadows. One of the greatest dramas of my life is the death of Lucien du Rubempré.
A poet can put up with anything but a typo.
The truth is rarely clean and never simple.
There are no warning signs. Nature does not send us messengers; she is too wise or too ruthless for such a thing.
The subject of passion is changeable, but passion always remains unique and unrepeatable.
It's only good that it doesn't concern us. Hecuba is for us, and that is why her pain is such noble material for tragedy.
When I have major problems, I give up everything except food and drink.
I confess that I cannot stand my relatives. This is because we cannot stand people with the same flaws as us.
Joining civilization is very difficult. For this there are two ways: culture or so-called depravity. And both are inaccessible to the peasants. This is why they persevere in virtue.
Nature is not the mother who raised us. She is our creation.
Nature hates reason.
Nature imitates art. She is able to show us only those effects that we already know thanks to poetry or painting. Herein lies the charm of nature and, equally, the mystery of its flaws.
There are no born liars and poets.
Those who wish to have power over the people are able to conquer it only by following the crowd like slaves. And on the path to the gods goes only he whose opinions are shouted in the wilderness.
Progress is the transposition of Utopia into life.
I'm sorry I didn't get to know you, but you've changed so much!
It's outrageous how many women in London flirt. With his own husbands. This is very disgusting. It's the same as doing your laundry in front of people.
The past, present, and future are but a moment in God's eyes, and we must strive to live in his eyes.