Guy de Maupassant

L'angoisse de l'attente faisait désirer la venue de l'ennemi.

In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

At the end of a short time, once the first terror had subsided, calm was again restored. In many houses the Prussian officer ate at the same table with the family. He was often well-bred, and, out of politeness, expressed sympathy with France and repugnance at being compelled to take part in the war. This sentiment was received with gratitude; besides, his protection might be needful some day or other.

Everything I see reminds me that in a few days I shall no longer see it... It's horrible... I shall see nothing more... nothing of what exists... the smallest objects that we use... glasses... plates... beds where people sleep so comfortably... carriages. It's so lovely, going out in a carriage, in the evening... How much I enjoyed all that!

I said, 'If other beings besides us exist on Earth, why didn't we meet them a long time ago?

Life seemed to have stopped short; the shops were shut, the streets deserted. Now and then an inhabitant, awed by the silence, glided swiftly by in the shadow of the walls. The anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of the enemy.

True love in my view can only flourish in conditions where there is a mixture of freedom and constraint. An imposed love, sanctioned by law and blessed by a priest does not really seem the same thing at all

<...> out of love of symmetry, just as people put two vases above a fireplace.

Suicide! But, if it is the strength of those who no longer have anything, it is the hope of all those who no longer believe, is the sublime value of the vanquished! Yeah, there's a door at least in this life, we can always open it and move on to the other side. The nature has had a movement of mercy; we have not been imprisoned. Thank you on behalf of the desperate!

What is the use of fine feelings when pitted against the power of instinct? And what chance does modest restraint have against that of natural desire?

I took the book from him reverently, and I gazed at these forms incomprehensible to me, but which revealed the immortal thoughts of the greatest shatterer of dreams who had ever dwelt on earth.

How strange and changeful is life! How small a thing is needed to make or ruin us!

Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're always looking towards the top and you feel happy, but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death at the end of it all. It's slow going up and quick going down.

When the first fine spring days come, and the earth awakes and assumes its garment of verdure, when the perfumed warmth of the air blows on our faces and fills our lungs, and even appears to penetrate to our heart, we feel vague longings for undefined happiness, a wish to run, to walk at random, to inhale the spring.

...A strange art – music – the most poetic and precise of all the arts, vague as a dream and precise as algebra.