27 Quotes by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

In Paris, where raillery is so quick to throw emotion out the window, silence, in a roomful of clever people after a story, is the most flattering of all marks of success

The Devil teaches women what they are – or they would teach it to the Devil if he did not know.

They had...finished their lives before their death – which is not always the end of life and often comes long before the end.

So this had been going on for three months?' asked Tressignies--not daring to specify what *this* referred to; his vagueness was in fact more horrible than precison would have been.'Yes,' she said. 'Three months.' Then she added, 'But what's three months? It takes time to cook and cook some more this dish of vengeance I'm preparing for him, to pay back for that heart of Esteban's that he wouldn't let me eat ...

She was one of those women of good family who no longer exist, elegant, distinguished, and haughty, whose pallor and thinness seem to say, 'I am conquered by the era, like all my breed. I am dying, but I despise you,' and - devil take me! - plebeian as I am, and though it is not very philosophical , I cannot help finding that beautiful.

He had a reputation in society as a man with a lively wit, whose gaiety was pleasant and formidable – which all gaiety must be in a society which would despise you if, while amusing it, you did not make it tremble a little. ("A Woman's Vengeance")

For with dandies, a joke is the only way of making yourself respected.

Fools – in other words most people – imagine that it would be a wonderful achievement to be able to recover our youth; but those who know life are aware how little it would profit us. ("A Woman's Vengeance")

For in Paris, whenever God puts a pretty woman there (the streets), the Devil, in reply, immediately puts a fool to keep her.