Think and Speak

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

“Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Le Horla et autres contes fantastiques

“It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Works

“breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death.”
― Guy de Maupassant, The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One

“One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Une vie

“If I could, I would stop the passage of time. But hour follows on hour, minute on minute, each second robbing me of a morsel of myself for the nothing of tomorrow. I shall never experience this moment again.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“The only certainty is death.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

“Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're always looking towards the top and you feel happy, but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death at the end of it all. It's slow going up and quick going down.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

“It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“In fact living is dying.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

“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.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“A lawful kiss is never worth as much as a stolen one.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“We breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work and then die! The end of life is death. What do you long for? Love? A few kisses and you will be powerless. Money? What for? To gratify your desires. Glory? What coems after it all? Death! Death alone is certain.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

“It is the encounters with people that make life worth living.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“And taking her friend’s hand, she put it on her breast, on that firm round covering of a woman’s heart which the male often finds so satisfying that he makes no attempt to find what lies beneath it.”
― Guy de Maupassant

“Why does one love? How queer it is to see only one being in the world, to have only one thought in one's mind, only one desire in the heart, and only one name on the lips--a name which comes up continually, rising, like the water in a spring, from the depths of the soul to the lips, a name which one repeats over and over again, which one whispers ceaselessly, everywhere, like a prayer.”
― Guy de Maupassant, The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One

“Les paroles d'amour, qui sont toujours les mêmes, prennent le goût des lèvres dont elles sortent.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami