Colette Quotes

The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.

Le monde des èmotions qu’on nomme, á la lègére, physiques.

Don’t ever wear artistic jewellry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation.

I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.

In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.

It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change.

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.

You do not notice changes in what is always before you.

By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet.

Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: “It’s four o’clock … At five I have my abyss.”

Whether you are dealing with an animal or a child, to convince is to weaken.

It’s nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time.

Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.

My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.