The Girl with the Golden Eyes

glory, ambition, politics, art—those prostitutes

there is no consolation when you have lost that which has seemed to you the infinite

but there exists a book, horrible, filthy, fearful, corrupting, which is always open and will never be shut, the great book of the world

It should be time to choose oneself a destiny, to employ one's powers on something which makes life worth living.

The scene was like a dream to De Marsay, but one of those dreams which, even when they fade away, leave a feeling of supernatural voluptuousness, which a man runs after for the remainder of his life.

Now, to take excessive care of oneself, does it not imply that one takes care in oneself of what belongs to another?

Amongst young people love is the finest of the emotions, it makes the life of the soul blossom, it nourishes by its solar power the finest inspirations and their great thoughts; the first fruits in all things have a delicious savor.

Men, born doubtless to be beautiful—for all creatures have a relative beauty—are enrolled from their childhood beneath the yoke of force, beneath the rule of the hammer, the chisel, the loom, and have been promptly vulcanized

well, this middleman has come to that world of sweat and good-will, of study and patience, with promises of lavish wages, either in the name of the town's caprices or with the voice of the monster dubbed speculation

ngth leads to abuse. Amongst old men it turns to vice; impotence tends to extremes.