French Aphorists

"The rare, brief joy of hearing that there is a little bit of perfection every year. (October 28, C.E.1892; Vergani, p. 61)"

"When he praises someone, he feels like he's denigrating himself a bit. (January 11, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 63)"

"Childhood memories drawn with an unlit match. (January 22, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 63)"

"Let us work harder: let us work hard to live less and to die sooner. (March 16, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 64)"

"It is necessary to love nature and men in spite of their mud. (March 27, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 65)"

"I know: all great men, in the beginning, were misunderstood; But I'm not a great man and I'd like to be understood right away. (April 28, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 65)"

"The blessed solitude in which one can finally thoroughly wipe one's nose. (Sept. 11, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 66)"

"When he listened to the speeches of the women he seemed to be asleep, but every now and then he made a little movement with his long nonsense hunter ears. (September 15, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 66)"

"The smell of ink is enough to make my dreams die. (September 15, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 66)"

"Distinguished critic, I understand your criticism very well. Know, let it be said between us, that I don't always like myself either. (October 14, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 67)"

"children should be optional apparitions. When Fantec sees me again a fortnight later, he tells me that I have grown up. (February 4, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 72)"

"And the grasshopper that we decapitate and that, without losing their heads for so little, fly out of the window with a stroke of the wing? (March 1, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 73)"

"I will love you long enough to recognize that your pretty mole is but a wart. (March 2, C.E.1893; Vergani, p. 73)"

"I would be anarchist if I were unhappy. But I have nothing to complain about. How could one be both anarchic and satisfied? (March 6, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 74)"

"A farmer is a tree trunk that can move. (March 6, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 74)"

"Our friendship could no longer go on: we had poured too much into each other. (March 29, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 74)"

"Friends. We see each other too much, we see each other less, we don't see each other anymore. (April 9, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 74)"

"Man is an animal that rolls its eyes and sees only the spiders of the ceiling. (April 10, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 74)"

"You have to let your prose cool like a cream before tasting it. (May 7, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 75)"

"Our love for the countryside: a rustic flash in the pan. (May 11, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 75)"

"It's not enough to be happy! It is also necessary that others are not. (May 16, 1894; Vergani, p. 75)"

"My literature is like a series of letters addressed to myself, which I allow you to read. (May 17, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 76)"

"Finally here I am bald. What was my hair used for? They were certainly not an embellishment, and I was to them a prey to an ignoble being, the barber, who breathed his contempt in my face, and caressed me like a mistress, and slapped me on the cheek like a priest. (May 29, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 76)"

"The thought of being thirty exhausts me. I have a whole dead life behind me. In front of me is an opaque existence in which I foresee nothing. I feel old, and sad like an old man. (May 29, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 76)"

"My literature is a continual attempt to rectify what I feel in life, like someone feverishly consulting a book to know what needs to be done to revive the drowned man lying on the shore. (May 30, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 77)"

"All animals speak, except the parrot which "can speak". (June 14, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 77)"

"The moment the condemned person has his head stuck in the guillotine, there should be a silence before the blade falls. A Republican Guard should come out of the ranks and hand the executioner an envelope. The executioner should say to the condemned, "It is your grace!" and at the same time he should drop the blade. The condemned man would thus die happily. (June 22, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 77)"

"Small white clouds rise over there as if shearing wool on the back of hills. (July 1, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 77)"

"To be successful, you have to add water to your wine, until there is no more wine. (July 3, C.E.1894)"

"The hand that writes must always try to ignore the reading eye. (July 7, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 78)"

"I have my brain like a fresh nut and I'm waiting for a hammer blow that has to open it. (July 23, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 79)"

"Faced with the stupidity of painters one wants to learn to draw before one dies. (July 23, C.E.1894; Vergani, p. 79)"

"E Dante, who faints every moment! (March 10, C.E.1895; Vergani, p. 92)"

"Writing is a way of speaking without being interrupted. (April 13, 1895; Vergani, p. 95)"

"roosters have apoplectic crests. (May 12, C.E.1895; Vergani, p. 95)"

"Return to Paris. Paris smells like square carriages. (July 19, C.E.1895; Vergani, p. 95)"

"Criticism is the art of reproaching others for not having the qualities we think we have. (July 29, C.E.1895; Vergani, p. 95)"

"Cheerful as when it's raining and you know a friend is out and he's taking it all out. (August 10, C.E.1895; Vergani, p. 95)"

"When one reads the story of an exemplary life, such as that of Balzac, one always arrives at the story of death. So, what good is it to be exemplary? (August 27, C.E.1895; Vergani, p. 96)"

"Women's breasts are shaped like large insecticidal powder bellows. (September 19, C.E.1895; Vergani, p. 96)"

"A truly free man is one who knows how to refuse an invitation to dinner without giving pretexts. (November 25, C.E.1895)"

"I will also sign the petition for pardon for Oscar Wilde, provided that he gives his word of honor not to write any more. (December 6, C.E.1895; Vergani, p. 98)"

"The mimosa is, among flowers, what the canary is among birds. (February 20, C.E.1896; Vergani, p. 108)"

"The word is the excuse of thought. (17 April 1896)"

"If I had talent, I would be imitated. If I were imitated, I would become fashionable. If I became fashionable, I would quickly go out of style. It is better, then, that I have no talent. (April 21, C.E.1896; Vergani, p. 108)"

"To ward off the storm, all kinds of cowardice can be committed: praying to God, or pretending to work, or saving the fly that was about to burn at the flame of the candle. (June 6, C.E.1896; Vergani, p. 109)"

"If you were to announce to me the death of my little girl whom I love so much, and in your words there was a picturesque one, I could not hear it without being fascinated by it. (July 9, C.E.1896; Vergani, pp. 109-110)"

"Glory is no more than a colonial genre. (July 18, C.E.1896; Vergani, p. 110)"

"If you had been a friend or relative of Verlaine, I would have slapped him without a doubt. A humble reader in the midst of an anonymous crowd, I know only the immortal poet. My joy is to love him, my duty is to absolve him for the evil he has done to others. (August C.E.1896; Vergani, p. 111)"

"Today I practice laughing for a good hour, to deserve the reputation of a gay writer that they wanted to give me. (February 18, C.E.1901; Vergani, p. 180)"