Je vois en toi quelque chose qui offense le vulgaire. - Stendhal

I no longer find such pleasure in that preeminently good society, of which I was once so fond. It seems to me that beneath a cloak of clever talk it proscribes all energy, all originality. If you are not a copy, people accuse you of being ill-mannered. And besides, good society usurps its privileges. It had in the past the privilege of judging what was proper, but now that it supposes itself to be attacked, it condemns not what is irredemably coarse and disagreeable, but what it thinks harmful to its interest.

Wit lasts no more than two centuries.

»Nace una mosca efímera a las nueve de la mañana y muere a las cinco de la tarde: ¿cómo puede comprender la palabra noche? Concededle cinco horas más de vida, y entonces verá la noche y sabrá qué es.