Guy de Maupassant

He seemed ever ready to defy somebody or something, the passersby, the houses, the whole city, retaining all the swagger of a dashing cavalryman in civil life.

Whence I conclude that the higher order of Realists should rather call themselves Illusionists.

The whole hand reeked of crime a mile off.

Men are all as stupid as geese and ignorant as donkeys.

Each of us, then, has simply his own illusion of the world⁠—poetical, sentimental, cheerful, melancholy, foul, or gloomy, according to his nature.

All Roads Lead to Rome⁠—But Metempsychosis Leads to the Lunatic Asylum.

In Paris one would be better off without a bed than without a dress suit.

All the great artists are those who can make other men see their own particular illusion.

But a fallen reputation is so difficult to recover, and always remains so fragile that, in spite of the shy reserve La Blanchotte maintained, they already gossiped in the neighbourhood.

Algiers is a white city

The artist who paints our portrait does not display our bones.

For hatred of the Alien is always strong enough to arm some intrepid beings who are ready to die for an Idea.

Monsieur de Marelle has no opinions on this point. He only has⁠—abstentions.

Talent is long patience.

French gallantry is one of the forms of patriotism.

My dear friend, for me a man in love is struck off the list of the living.

The stones may indeed hit their brothers, who have a body, but will never hurt simplicity⁠—which has none.

Nowadays you are told: ‘You must love one man only.’ It is as if somebody were to force me to eat turkey only all my life long.

It is you who really elect them, ladies, and you only elect them to see them die.

Women, whose nerves are more sensitive, sometimes feel, without knowing why, that the sound of useless speech is as irritating as an insult.