“When a man talks with absolute sincerity and freedom he goes on a voyage of discovery. The whole company has shares in the enterprise.”
Source: Causes and Consequences
“The short lesson that comes out of long experience in political agitation is something like this: all the motive power in all of these movements is the instinct of religious feeling. All the obstruction comes from attempting to rely on anything else. Conciliation is the enemy.”
Source: Practical Agitation
“I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free; without shackles of any kind, without care, without preoccupation, without thought even of to-morrow. You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your fancy.”
Source: The Horla and Other Stories
“Love always has its price, come whence it may.”
Source: The Necklace and Other Short Stories
“I have seen mad people, and I have known some who were quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point. They could speak clearly, readily, profoundly on everything; till their thoughts were caught in the breakers of their delusions and went to pieces there, were dispersed and swamped in that furious and terrible sea of fogs and squalls which is called MADNESS.”
Source: The Horla (Horror Classic): From one of the greatest French writers, widely regarded as the ‘Father of Modern Short Story’ writing, known for The Necklace, Boule de Suif, Mademoiselle Fifi, Bel-Ami, The Piece of String, A Life…
“I go to bed, and I wait for sleep as a man might wait for the executioner. I wait for its coming with dread, and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes, until the moment when I suddenly fall asleep, as a man throws himself into a pool of stagnant water in order to drown. I do not feel this perfidious sleep coming over me as I used to, but a sleep which is close to me and watching me, which is going to seize me by the head, to close my eyes and annihilate me.”
Source: 13 Short Scary Stories: Masterpieces of the greatest writers
“In the East men know panic, but they do not know what fright is.”
“There are in France some fifty thousand young men of good birth and fairly well off who are encouraged to live a life of complete idleness. They must either cease to exist or must come to see that there can be no happiness, no health even, without regular daily labor of some sort... The need of work is in me.”
“Legitimized love always despises its easygoing brother.”
Source: Mademoiselle Fifi and Other Stories - Bilingual Edition (English / French): An Adventure in Paris, Boule de Suif, Rust, Marroca, The Log, The Relic, Words of Love, Christmas Eve, Two Friends, Am I Insane?...
“You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant (Illustrated)
