"Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell, which, perhaps, will some day find its Dante. In this third soc…"

"Their genuine stupidity lies hid beneath their specialism. They know their business, but are ignorant of everything w…"

"People crushed with business, who, if they attain their end, are literally killed in its attainment."

"From the lowest gutters, where its stream commences, from the little shops where it is stopped by puny coffer-dams, f…"

"The wealthy obtain in Paris ready-made wit and science—formulated opinions which save them the need of having wit, sc…"

"The exorbitant movement of the proletariat, the corrupting influence of the interests which consume the two middle cl…"

"Huysmans ... was one day to astonish the world by his resounding cry: À rebours! denouncing with a fine fanaticism th…"

"The apple trees planted in rows on the favorable hillsides heralded a splendid crop that summer; I dreamed of the ric…"

"The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free, that is the task."

"I soon realized that what are supposedly the worst things (lying, to mention only one) are hard to do only when you h…"