Guy de Maupassant

“A human life is a life of continuous defeat.”

“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”

“The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death.”

“Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.”

“A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear.”

“How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed for one to be ruined or saved!”

“Travel is a kind of door through which you exit from reality as if you were entering into an unexplored reality.”

“Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.”

“Conversation. What is it? A mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.”

“Official truths are often powerful illusions.”

“She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans.”

“A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.”

“The telling of a story, like virtually every other act of human communication, is a political act.”

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us.”

“War is a brutal, savage thing.”

“It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.”

“I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.”

“They loved each other, not driven by any present desire, but by the sweet continuity of common habits.”

“Get married, you will be attached to everything; get not married, you will be attached to nothing.”

“What a terrible thing it is to be a woman! What a wonderful thing it is to be a man! Or is it the other way around?”