Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“(it was) beautiful, like so many senseless things.”

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“She was one of those women of good family who no longer exist, elegant, distinguished, and haughty, whose pallor and thinness seem…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“In Paris, where raillery is so quick to throw emotion out the window, silence, in a roomful of clever people after a…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“Beauty is single. Only ugliness is multiple, and even then its multiplicity is soon exhausted.”

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“Night, which in Autumn seems to fall from the sky so suddenly, chilled us...”

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“For with dandies, a joke is the only way of making yourself respected.”

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“Extreme civilization robs crime of its frightful poetry, and prevents the writer from restoring it. That would be too dreadful, say those…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“And, in fact, if these crimes appeal less to the senses, they appeal more to the mind; and the mind, in the…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“Now, Mesnilgrand saw himself come to full maturity without the great military career that he had hoped for, his sword rusting in…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“My good fellow,” said Mesnil, stopping, “ever since the creation of the world there have been men like me specially intended to…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“Dandies, who – as you know - scorn all emotions as being beneath them, and do not believe, like that simpleton Goethe,…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“For – as everyone knows – in libertinism bad taste is a potent force. ("A Woman's Vengeance")”

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“The Devil teaches women what they are – or they would teach it to the Devil if he did not know.”

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“He was terrified by the sublime horror of it, for intensity of feeling, carried to this degree, is sublime. ("A Woman's Vengeance")”

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“Hatred needs scorn. Scorn is hatred's nectar!”

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“Men are all the same. Novelty amongst themselves displeases and upsets them – but if the novelty is wearing a skirt, they…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“He had a reputation in society as a man with a lively wit, whose gaiety was pleasant and formidable – which all…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“Fools – in other words most people – imagine that it would be a wonderful achievement to be able to recover our…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

“If writers only dared to dare, a Suetonius or a Tacitus of the Novel could exist, for the Novel is essentially the…

— Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly