Guy De Maupassant quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Guy De Maupassant

Guy De Maupassant Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Guy De Maupassant on Wise Famous Quotes.

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing

Several sailors, sheltered behind the curved bottoms of their boats, were watching this battle of the sky and the sea.

Whatever you want to say, there is only one word to express it, only one verb to give it movement, only one adjective to qualify it.

Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.
[My Uncle Sosthenes]

Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.

Travel, like dreams, is a door that opens from the real world into a world that is yet to be discovered

Anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of enemies.

In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both.

I had kissed her at odd times, in out of the way corners, in the manner of a mountain guide, nothing more.

The essence of life is the smile of round female bottoms, under the shadow of cosmic boredom.

The great artists are those who impose their personal vision upon humanity.

A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.

But he asked himself now if he would not be disobeying God. And does not God permit love, since He surrounds it with such visible splendor?

After all, life is never so jolly or so miserable as people seem to think.

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs ... of our barbarous ancestors.

In the East men know panic, but they do not know what fright is.

Then, one by one, they went away, for night was falling on the storm, wrapping in shadows the raging ocean and all the battling elements.

Broad daylight does not encourage the apprehension of horror.

Institutionalised love always looks down on her more liberal sister

I should add that there are undoubtedly charming Englishmen; I have often met them. But they are rarely our fellow-guests at hotels.

Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.

You've never lived until you've almost died. For those who have fought for it, life has a flavor the protected shall never know.

What you love too violently finishes by killing you.

Legitimized love always despises its easygoing brother.

Love always has its price, come whence it may.

They had moved closer to one another to watch the dying moments of the day, this beautiful bright May day.

We love our mother unknowingly, and only realize how deep-rooted that love is at the ultimate separation.

Yes, this is the only good thing in life: love! To hold a woman you love in your arms! That is the ultimate in human happiness.

It is the encounters with people that make life worth living.

Philippe-Auguste was an ugly child, with uncombed hair and dirt all over him, and the face of a cretin.

Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.

Ale, not beer, in a pewter mug was comme il faut, the only thing for a gentleman of letters, worthy of the name, to drink.

Champagne ... the wine of kings, the king of wines

To avoid each other, their eyes had developed an amazing mobility with all the cunning of enemies fearful of meeting each other head on.

The secret is not to betray your ignorance. Just maneuver, avoid the quicksands and obstacles, and the rest can be found in a dictionary.

Breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die.

He was a fat little man with short arms, short legs, a short neck, short nose, short everything in fact.

Put black on white.

It is not difficult to pass for being learned. The secret is not to betray your ignorance.

You'll find that my coquetry is quite impartial, which allows me to keep my friends.

The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death.

I hope you realize that you really hit it off with the ladies? You must cultivate that. It could take you far.

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

I said, 'If other beings besides us exist on Earth, why didn't we meet them a long time ago?

The only certainty is death.

Abstinence is the worst form of perversion.

History, that excitable and unreliable old lady.

When we are young, our mornings are triumphant!" Then

She stayed there, in her ball dress, without strength to go to bed, overwhelmed, on a chair, without a fire, without a thought.

You must render: never report.

The simplest of women are wonderful liars who can extricate themselves from the most difficult dilemmas with a skill bordering on genius.

Of all the passions, the only one that seems respectable to me is the passion for food

Every authentically loved being is a kind of god.

The dead dog had come more than a hundred miles to find its master.
[Mademoiselle Cocotte]

It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.

Charming, charming,' the lawyer said at intervals.

In fact living is dying.

I think I have already told you that there are certain things which it is not necessary to discuss, and this is one of them.

The English have only three sauces - a white one, a brown one and a yellow one, and none of them have any flavor whatever.

One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.

What is the use of fine feelings when pitted against the power of instinct? And what chance does modest restraint have against that of natural desire?

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

There is only one good thing in life, and that is love.

< ... > out of love of symmetry, just as people put two vases above a fireplace.

Military men are the scourges of the world.

Nature loves death: she will not punish it.

To lie about a far country is easy

A lawful kiss is never worth as much as a stolen one.

The glasses were half full, which meant that the guests were completely so

Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.
[On Water]

The bed comprehends our whole life, for we were born in it, we live in it, and we shall die in it

I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt.
[As quoted in Pol Neveux's introduction, Guy De Maupassant: A Study]

Envy, bitter envy, was permeating his soul drop by drop, like a poison that tainted all his pleasures and made his life hateful.

We are accustomed to use our eyes only with the memory of what other people before us have thought about the object we are looking at.