[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$f86I3EV8k4wDBQ-IAnIJNBmWTZc4xaAUNzbBN2KmljEo":3,"$fRtN7-unQqc7A9kRfi-Aggc7erOtn2i977rvgzyE49ms":12},{"author":4,"tags":11},{"author_id":5,"author_name":6,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"bio":9,"short_bio":9,"bio_jsonld":9,"slug":10,"image_url":9},9683,"Octave Mirbeau","O",44,null,"octave-mirbeau",[],{"quotes":13,"pagination":77},[14,22,29,35,41,47,53,59,65,71],{"id":15,"quote_text":16,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":19,"source":20,"quote_tag":21,"commentary":9},3321833,"Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call monsters are superior forms, or forms beyond your understanding.",6,false,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":23,"quote_text":24,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":25,"source":26,"quote_tag":27,"commentary":28},3321824,"For to arrive somewhere means to die!",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],"**The Backstory**\n\nThis enigmatic quote is attributed to Octave Mirbeau, a French novelist and playwright known for his critiques of societal norms and his exploration of the human condition. Written in the late 19th or early 20th century, it reflects Mirbeau's existentialist leanings and his fascination with the complexities of life and death. During this time, Mirbeau was struggling with personal losses, including the death of loved ones and his own health issues.\n\n**The Hidden Insight**\n\nOn the surface, the quote seems to suggest that reaching one's destination or achieving success comes at a terrible cost – the loss of identity, autonomy, or even life itself. However, upon closer examination, it reveals a profound insight into the human experience: that the pursuit of goals and ambitions is often accompanied by a gradual erasure of one's original self. Mirbeau is pointing to the tension between our desire for achievement and our need for authenticity.\n\n**How to Use This**\n\nTo apply this mindset today, recognize that your professional or creative successes may come at the cost of your own identity. Be aware that the more you conform to societal expectations or internalize external pressures, the less you may be true to yourself. To avoid losing yourself in the process, establish a clear sense of purpose and values, and prioritize self-reflection and authenticity alongside your ambitions.",{"id":30,"quote_text":31,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":32,"source":33,"quote_tag":34,"commentary":9},3321813,"Have you ever been at a festival when you were sad or ill? Well, then you’ve felt how much your sadness was irritated and exasperated, as by an insult, by the joyful faces and the beauty of things. It’s an intolerable feeling. Think of what it must mean to a victim who is going to die under torture. Think how much the torture is multiplied in his flesh and his soul by all the splendour which surrounds him; and how much more atrocious is his agony, how much more hopelessly atrocious, darling!",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":36,"quote_text":37,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":38,"source":39,"quote_tag":40,"commentary":9},3321809,"You see how all occidental art loses by the fact that the magnificent expressions of love have been denied it. With us, eroticism is poor, stupid and frigid. It is always presented in ambiguous attitudes of sin, while here it preserves all its vital scope, all its passionate poetry and the stupendous pulse of all nature. But you are only a european lover... a poor, timid, chilly little soul.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":42,"quote_text":43,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":44,"source":45,"quote_tag":46,"commentary":9},3321795,"In that atrocious second I understood that desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual idea of hell and its horror.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":48,"quote_text":49,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":50,"source":51,"quote_tag":52,"commentary":9},3321779,"Look here, before you and around you! There is not a grain of sand that has not been bathed in blood, and what is that grain of sand itself, if not the dust of death? But how rich this blood is, and how fertile is the dust!",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":54,"quote_text":55,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":56,"source":57,"quote_tag":58,"commentary":9},3321764,"Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he will always see that word: murder – immortally inscribed upon the pediment of that vast slaughterhouse – humanity.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":60,"quote_text":61,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":62,"source":63,"quote_tag":64,"commentary":9},3321745,"Nothing comes at all – never anything. And I cannot accustom myself to that. It is this monotony, this absolute fixity in life, that is the hardest thing for me to endure. I should like to go away from here. Go away? But where and how? I do not know, and I stay.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":66,"quote_text":67,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":68,"source":69,"quote_tag":70,"commentary":9},3321726,"When one tears away the veils and shows them naked, people’s souls give off such a pungent smell of decay.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":72,"quote_text":73,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":74,"source":75,"quote_tag":76,"commentary":9},3321687,"Come now, don’t make such a funeral face. It isn’t dying that’s sad; it’s living when you’re not happy.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"currentPage":78,"totalPages":79,"totalItems":8,"itemsPerPage":80},1,5,10]