15 quotes
You will see that the only liar in the Midi, if there is one, is the sun; everything that he touches he exaggerates.
Tartarin de Tarascon (1872)
Where would be the merit if heroes were never afraid?
Tartarin de Tarascon (1872)
The man of the Midi does not lie, he deceives himself. He does not always speak the truth but he believes he speaks it.
Tartarin de Tarascon (1872)
Men grow old, but they do not ripen.
Notes sur la vie (1899)
How many men with libraries over which one might write "For external use", as on druggists' labels.
Notes sur la vie (1899)
Pain is always new to the sufferer, but loses its originality for those around him.
The epithet should be the mistress of the substantive, never its lawful wife.
Notes sur la vie (1899)
Children are like men, the experience of others does not help them.
Distrust the man who smiles before he speaks.
You see, my children, when the corn is ripe it must be cut; when the wine is drawn it must be drunk.
That's fame: just a cigar with the hot end and ash in your mouth.
At fifteen years, twenty at most, one has "come from the press".
Notes sur la vie (1899)
There is no law, in literature, against picking up a rusty weapon; the important thing is to be able to sharpen the blade and to reforge the hilt to fit one's hand.
Hatred is the anger of the weak.
It is clever the way death reaps and gathers its harvests, but what somber harvests. Whole generations do not fall at once; that would be too sad, too visible. But bit by bit. The meadow is attacked on several sides at the same time. One day, one will go; the other, some time after; one must reflect, glance about oneself to notice the empty spaces, the vast contemporary killing.