27 Quotes by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

They were like the Neapolitan girl who said that her sorbet was good but that it would have been better if it had been a sin to eat it.

Night, which in Autumn seems to fall from the sky so suddenly, chilled us...

En dehors des statues finies de Michel-Ange, j'ai la certitude que son atelier serait encore quelque chose de suggestif et de grand. Même la sciure de son marbre, n'aurait-elle pas un aspect auguste ? C'est une impression de cet ordre que vous causera ce gros volume de cinq cent cinquante pages, où il y a de la sciure de ces idées qui, depuis, sont devenues des monuments !

And, in fact, if these crimes appeal less to the senses, they appeal more to the mind; and the mind, in the last analysis, is the profoundest part of us. For the novelist, therefore, there is a new type of tragedy to be derived from these crimes, more intellectual than physical in character, which do not really seem to be crimes to the superficial judgement of old materialistic societies because they do not involve bloodshed, and murder is committed only in the sphere of feelings and manners.

Hatred needs scorn. Scorn is hatred's nectar!

Le Génie ne décourage pas le Génie.

For – as everyone knows – in libertinism bad taste is a potent force. ("A Woman's Vengeance")

les contes répétés deux fois sont ennuyeux, même quand ils sont des vérités

My good fellow,” said Mesnil, stopping, “ever since the creation of the world there have been men like me specially intended to astonish men...men like you.