Remy De Gourmont Quotes & Sayings

Ah! I wish I had the courage to work for the debasement of my contemporaries. What good work it would be to defile their daughters: to insinuate something obscene into the infantile hands which caress each paternal beard and cheek; to poison them, even at the risk of perishing ourselves; to do as those Spanish monks did, who drank death in order that they might persuade the French rabble which had violated their monastery to do likewise. — Remy De Gourmont

Of all the sexual aberrations, perhaps the most peculiar is chastity. — Remy De Gourmont

Intelligence is perhaps but a malady, -a beautiful malady; the oysters's pearl. — Remy De Gourmont

It appears, from all this, that our eyes are uncertain. Two persons look at the same clock and there is a difference of two or three minutes in their reading of the time. One has a tendency to put back the hands, the other to advance them. Let us not too confidently try to play the part of the third person who wishes to set the first two aright; it may well happen that we are mistaken in turn. Besides, in our daily life, we have less need of certainty than of a certain approximation to certainty. Let us learn how to see, but without looking too closely at things and men: they look better from a distance. — Remy De Gourmont

Good books are irrefutable, and bad books refute themselves. — Remy De Gourmont

To ameliorate & raise the standard of the workingmen to the bourgeois level, is perhaps to create a race of slaves content with their lot,-a cast of comfortable Pariahs. — Remy De Gourmont

Man is the inventor of stupidity. — Remy De Gourmont

Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion. Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art. — Remy De Gourmont

Everything, indeed, in a work of art should be unedited,
and even the words, by the manner of grouping them, of shaping them to new meanings,
and one often regrets having an alphabet familiar to too many half-lettered persons. — Remy De Gourmont

The woman who loves always smells good. — Remy De Gourmont

It is not perhaps a question of truthfulness; it is rather a natural incapacity to think for herself, to take cognizance of herself in her own brain, and not in the eyes and in the lips of others; even when the ingenuously write into little secret diaries, women think of the unknown god reading
perhaps
over their shoulders. With a similar nature, a woman, to be placed in the first ranks of men, would require even higher genius than that of the highest man; that is why, if the conspicuous works of men themselves, the finest works of women are always inferior to the worth of the women who produced them. — Remy De Gourmont

Since art is the expression of beauty and beauty can be understood only in the form of the material elements of the true idea it contains, art has become almost uniquely feminine. Beauty is woman, and also art is woman. — Remy De Gourmont

Thinking is hard work. One can't bear burdens and ideas at the same time. — Remy De Gourmont

Nothing exists except by virtue of a disequilibrium, an injustice. All existence is a theft paid for by other existences; no life flowers except on a cemetery. — Remy De Gourmont

It is a communion at once mystic & real, in the guise of metal.
Money which is liberty, is also fecundation. It is the universal sperm without which human societies would remain but barren wombs. Paganism, which knew & understood everything, opens to a shower of gold from on high the conquered thighs of Danae. That is what we should see on our coins, instead of a meaningless head, if we were capable of contemplating without embarrassment that religious tableau. — Remy De Gourmont

How many contradictions! Eh! If I loaded my wagon all on the same side, I'd tumble it over. — Remy De Gourmont

Demons are like obedient dogs; they come when they are called. — Remy De Gourmont

Most men who rail against women are railing at one woman only. — Remy De Gourmont

Litanies of the Rose
Rose with dark eyes,
mirror of your nothingness,
rose with dark eyes,
make us believe in the mystery,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence.
Rose the colour of pure gold,
oh safe deposit of the ideal,
rose the colour of pure gold,
give us the key of your womb,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence.
Rose the colour of silver,
censer of our dreams,
rose the colour of silver,
take our heart and turn it into smoke,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence. — Remy De Gourmont

Life is a series of sensations connected to different states of consciousness. — Remy De Gourmont

To write well, to have style ... is to paint. The master faculty of style is therefore the visual memory. If a writer does not see what he describes-countrysides and figures, movements and gestures-how could he have a style, that is originality? — Remy De Gourmont

The pleasure of being a scoundrel can be adequately savored in silence. — Remy De Gourmont

God is not all that exists. God is all that does not exist. — Remy De Gourmont

Nothing returns, nothing begins anew; it is never the same thing, and yet it seems always the same. For, if the days never return, every moment brings forth new beings whose destiny it will be to create for themselves, in the course of their lives, the same illusions that have companioned and at times illuminated ours. The fabric is eternal; eternal, the embroidery. A universe dies when we die; another is born when a new creature comes to earth with a new sensibility. If, then, it is very true that nothing begins all over again, it is very just to say, too, that everything continues. One may fearlessly advance the latter statement or the former, according to whether one considers the individual or the blending of generations. From this second point of view, everything is coexistent; the same cause produces contradictory, yet logical effects. All the colors and their shades are printed at a single impression, to form the wonderful image we call life. — Remy De Gourmont

Women still remember the first kiss after men have forgotten the last. — Remy De Gourmont

Art includes everything that stimulates the desire to live. — Remy De Gourmont

Art is the flower of life and, as seed, it gives back life. — Remy De Gourmont

We live less and less, and we learn more and more. Sensibility is surrendering to intelligence. — Remy De Gourmont

The ever-present phenomenon ceases to exist for our senses. It was a city dweller, or a prisoner, or a blind man suddenly given his sight, who first noted natural beauty. — Remy De Gourmont

It was an accident that has endowed man with intelligence. He has made use of it: he invented stupidity. — Remy De Gourmont

Man, in spite of his tendency towards mendacity, has a great respect for what he calls the truth. Truth is his staff in his voyage through life; commonplaces are the bread in his bag and the wine in his jug. — Remy De Gourmont

The human mind is so complex and things are so tangled up with each other that, to explain a blade of straw, one would have to take to pieces an entire universe. — Remy De Gourmont

Autumn is as joyful and sweet as an untimely end. — Remy De Gourmont

To have a solid foundation of skepticism, -that is to say, the faculty of changing at any moment, of turning back, of facing successively the metamorphoses of life. — Remy De Gourmont

Try to put well in practice what you already know. In so doing, you will, in good time, discover the hidden things you now inquire about. — Remy De Gourmont

Two elements are needed to form a truth - a fact and an abstraction. — Remy De Gourmont

It is undefinable; and moreover, if it were defined it would lose all its value. God is not all that exists; God is all that does not exist. Therein resides the power & the charm of that mysterious word. God is tradition, God is legend, God is folklore, God is a fairy-tale, God is romance, God is a lie, God is a bell, God is a church window, God is religion, God is all that is absurd, useless, invisible, intangible, all that is nothingness & that symbolizes nothingness. God is the nihil in tenebris-(nothing in the darkness) -men have made of him light, life & love. — Remy De Gourmont

The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it. — Remy De Gourmont

Those men who live with the greatest intensity are often the ones who seem to take least interest in life. — Remy De Gourmont

Cliche refers to words, commonplace to ideas. Cliche describes the form or the letter, commonplace the substance or spirit. To confuse them is to confuse the thought with the expression of the thought. The cliche is immediately perceivable; the commonplace very often escapes notice if decked out in original dress. There are few examples, in any literature, of new ideas expressed in original form. The most critical mind must often be content with one or the other of these pleasures, only too happy when it is not deprived of both at once, which is not too rarely the case. — Remy De Gourmont

To know what everyone knows is to know nothing. — Remy De Gourmont

Born of the sensibility, art sows and creates life in its turn. — Remy De Gourmont

Modesty is the delicate form of hypocrisy. — Remy De Gourmont

Abstractions do us much harm by impelling us to the quest of the absolute in all things. Joy does not exist, but there are joys: and these joys may not be folly felt unless they are detached from neutral or even painful conditions. The idea of continuity is almost self-negating. Nature makes no leaps; but life makes only bounds. It is measured by our heartbeats & these may be counted. That there should be, amid the number of deep pulsations that scan the line of our existence, some grievous ones, does not permit the affirmation that life is therefore evil. Moreover, neither a continuous joy would be perceived by consciousness. — Remy De Gourmont

Extraordinarily excessive sensuality it may be .. but it all comes down to the same thing in the end, and one means is surely as good as another, since the end obtained is always the same. In any case the exceptional, endlessly repeated, is no different than the banal; and unceasing recapitulation can add nothing, in the end, to the sum of experience. I am weary and hopeless three times the dupe. Why have you trained me in the shame of abominable sins? — Remy De Gourmont

Nothing is better for "spiritual advancement" & the detachment of the flesh than a close reading of the "Erotic Dictionary. — Remy De Gourmont

For two thousand years Christianity has been telling us: life is death, death is life; it is high time to consult the dictionary. — Remy De Gourmont

Science is the only truth and it is the great lie. It knows nothing, and people think it knows everything. It is misrepresented. People think that science is electricity, automobilism, and dirigible balloons. It is something very different. It is life devouring itself. It is the sensibility transformed into intelligence. It is the need to know stifling the need to live. It is the genius of knowledge vivisecting the vital genius. — Remy De Gourmont

A definition is a sack of flour compressed into a thimble — Remy De Gourmont

The only excuse a man has for writing is that he express himself, that he reveal to others the kind of world reflected in the mirror of his soul; his only excuse is that he be original. — Remy De Gourmont

Chastity is the most unnatural of the sexual perversions. — Remy De Gourmont

Each man must grant himself the emotions that he needs and the morality that suits him. — Remy De Gourmont

Well, suppose we remain upon earth, after all? Suppose we bravely accept the death of our dreams at the same time as the death of our bodies? This beyond is decidedly uncertain, quite vague and mobile. I do not believe that it exists everywhere; I believe that it is nowhere except in our infantile imaginations. Born with us, it will end at the same moment that we do, to be born anew in our posterity. The beyond is the earthly tomorrow, as we bequeath it to our heirs and as they modify it by their efforts and in accordance with their tastes. — Remy De Gourmont

In order to understand life it is not only necessary not to be indifferent to men, but not to be indifferent to flocks, to trees. One should be indifferent to nothing. — Remy De Gourmont

An imbecile is never bored: he contemplates himself. — Remy De Gourmont

Man has made use of his intelligence, he invented stupidity. — Remy De Gourmont

He was a young man of savage & unexpected originality, a diseased genius & quite frankly, a mad genius. Imbeciles grow insane & in their insanity the imbecility remains stagnant or agitated; in the madness of a man of genius some genius often remains: the form & not the quality of intelligence has been affected; the fruit has been bruised in the fall, but has preserved all its perfume & all the savor of its pulp, hardly too ripe. — Remy De Gourmont

Money is the sign of liberty. To curse money is to curse liberty- to curse life, which is nothing, if it be not free. — Remy De Gourmont

Knowledge has its end in itself, apart from any idea of life and propagation of the species. — Remy De Gourmont

It is well-nigh obvious that those who are in favor of the death penalty have more affinities with murderers than those who oppose it. — Remy De Gourmont

The greater part of a men who speak ill of women are speaking of a certain woman. — Remy De Gourmont

Man associates ideas not according to logic or verifiable exactitude, but according to his pleasure and interests. It is for this reason that most truths are nothing but prejudices. — Remy De Gourmont

To acquire the full consciousness of self is to know oneself so different from others that no longer feels allied with men except by purely animal contacts: nevertheless, among souls of this degree, there is an ideal fraternity based on differences,
while society fraternity is based on resemblances.
The full consciousness of self can be called originality of soul, -and all this is said only to point out the group of rare beings to which Andre Gide belongs.
The misfortune of these beings, when they express themselves, is that they do it with such odd gestures that men fear to approach them; their life of social contacts must often revolve in the brief circle of ideal fraternities; or, when the mob consents to admit such souls, it is as curiosities or museum objects. Their glory is, finally, to be loved from afar & almost understood, as parchments are seen & read above sealed cases. — Remy De Gourmont

Tears flow and smiles fade to the same rhythm of life, to disappear together in the bottomless abyss. — Remy De Gourmont

The little girl expects no declaration of tenderness from her doll. She loves it, & that's all. It is thus that we should love. — Remy De Gourmont

Man begins by loving love and ends by loving a woman. Woman begins by loving a man and ends by loving love. — Remy De Gourmont

Art is the accomplice of love. — Remy De Gourmont

Industry has operated against the artisan in favor of the idler, and also in favor of capital and against labor. Any mechanical invention whatsoever has been more harmful to humanity than a century of war. — Remy De Gourmont

The snow kept on falling, and penetrated so deeply into her prone body that she had no other feeling than that of wanting to die, buried under these adorable snow kisses, to be embalmed in the snow - and then to be swept off, in a final gust, to the land of eternal snow, to the fabled infinite mountains where the darling little adultresses lie in a perpetual swoon, ceaselessly and firmly caressed by all the perverse angels. — Remy De Gourmont

Man is an animal that "arrived"; that is all. — Remy De Gourmont

Man can no more see the world than a fish can see the river bank. — Remy De Gourmont

Deprived of the infinite, man has become what he always was: a supernumerary.
He hardly counts; he forms part of the troupe called Humanity; if he misses a cue, he is hissed; and if he drops through the trapdoor another puppet is in readiness to take his place. — Remy De Gourmont

If the secret of being a bore is to tell all, the secret of pleasing is to say just enough to be - not understood, but divined. — Remy De Gourmont

The man of genius may dwell unknown, but one always may recognize the path he has followed into the forest. It was a giant who passed that way. The branches are broken at a height that other men cannot reach. — Remy De Gourmont

And there is neither beginning nor end, nor past nor future; there is only a present, at the same time static and ephemeral, multiple and absolute. It is the vital ocean in which we all share, according to our strength, our needs or our desires. — Remy De Gourmont

Each one, then, should love his life, even though it be not very attractive, for it is the only life. It is a boon that will never return and that each person should tend and enjoy with care; it is one's capital, large or small, and can not be treated as an investment like those whose dividends are payable through eternity. Life is an annuity; nothing is more certain than that. So that all efforts are to be respected that tend to ameliorate the tenure of this perishable possession which, at the end of every day, has already lost a little of its value. Eternity, the bait by which simple folk are still lured, is not situated beyond life, but in life itself, and is divided among all men, all creatures. Each of us holds but a small portion of it, but that share is so precious that it suffices to enrich the poorest. Let us then take the bitter and the sweet in confidence, and when the fall of the days seems to whirl about us, let us remember that dusk is also dawn. — Remy De Gourmont

As a matter of fact, when it comes to seeing, men display two tendencies: they see what they wish to see, what is useful to them, what is agreeable. The second is the tendency toward inhibition; they do not see what they do not wish to see, what is useless to them, or disagreeable. — Remy De Gourmont

Simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds. — Remy De Gourmont

To be a member of such a crowd ... is not much to be far removed from solitude; the freedom of everyone is assured by the freedom to which everyone else lays claim. — Remy De Gourmont