Chapter 2

To learn to obey is the only way of learning to command

CHRYSANTHEME, By Pierre Loti

Ah! the natural perversity of inanimate things

Contemptuous pity, both for my suspicions and the cause of them

Dull hours spent in idle and diffuse conversation

Efforts to arrange matters we succeed often only in disarranging

Found nothing that answered to my indefinable expectations

Habit turns into a makeshift of attachment

I know not what lost home that I have failed to find

Irritating laugh which is peculiar to Japan

Japanese habit of expressing myself with excessive politeness

Ordinary, trivial, every-day objects

Prayers swallowed like pills by invalids at a distance

Seeking for a change which can no longer be found

Trees, dwarfed by a Japanese process

When the inattentive spirits are not listening

Which I should find amusing in any one else,—any one I loved

CONSCIENCE, By Hector Malot

As ignorant as a schoolmaster

As free from prejudices as one may be, one always retains a few

Confidence in one's self is strength, but it is also weakness

Conscience is a bad weighing-machine

Conscience is only an affair of environment and of education

Find it more easy to make myself feared than loved

For the rest of his life he would be the prisoner of his crime

Force, which is the last word of the philosophy of life

He did not sleep, so much the better! He would work more

I believed in the virtue of work, and look at me!

In his eyes everything was decided by luck

Intelligent persons have no remorse

It is the first crime that costs

It is only those who own something who worry about the price

Leant—and when I did not lose my friends I lost my money

Leisure must be had for light reading, and even more for love

Looking for a needle in a bundle of hay

Neither so simple nor so easy as they at first appeared

One does not judge those whom one loves

People whose principle was never to pay a doctor

Power to work, that was never disturbed or weakened by anything

Reason before the deed, and not after

Repeated and explained what he had already said and explained

She could not bear contempt

The strong walk alone because they need no one

We are so unhappy that our souls are weak against joy

We weep, we do not complain

Will not admit that conscience is the proper guide of our action

You love me, therefore you do not know me

ZIBELINE, By Phillipe de Massa

All that was illogical in our social code

Ambiguity has no place, nor has compromise

But if this is our supreme farewell, do not tell me so!

Chain so light yesterday, so heavy to-day

Every man is his own master in his choice of liaisons

If I do not give all I give nothing

Indulgence of which they stand in need themselves

Life goes on, and that is less gay than the stories

Men admired her; the women sought some point to criticise

Only a man, wavering and changeable

Ostensibly you sit at the feast without paying the cost

Paris has become like a little country town in its gossip

The night brings counsel

Their Christian charity did not extend so far as that

There are mountains that we never climb but once

You are in a conquered country, which is still more dangerous

THE CHILD OF A CENTURY, By Alfred de Musset

A terrible danger lurks in the knowledge of what is possible

Accustomed to call its disguise virtue

Adieu, my son, I love you and I die

All philosophy is akin to atheism

All that is not life, it is the noise of life

And when love is sure of itself and knows response

Because you weep, you fondly imagine yourself innocent

Become corrupt, and you will cease to suffer

Began to forget my own sorrow in my sympathy for her

Beware of disgust, it is an incurable evil

Can any one prevent a gossip

Cold silence, that negative force

Contrive to use proud disdain as a shield

Death is more to be desired than a living distaste for life

Despair of a man sick of life, or the whim of a spoiled child

Do they think they have invented what they see

Each one knows what the other is about to say

Fool who destroys his own happiness

Force itself, that mistress of the world

Funeral processions are no longer permitted

Galileo struck the earth, crying: "Nevertheless it moves!"

Good and bad days succeeded each other almost regularly

Great sorrows neither accuse nor blaspheme—they listen

Grief itself was for her but a means of seducing

Happiness of being pursued

He who is loved by a beautiful woman is sheltered from every blow

He lives only in the body

How much they desire to be loved who say they love no more

Human weakness seeks association

I can not be near you and separated from you at the same moment

I can not love her, I can not love another

I boasted of being worse than I really was

I neither love nor esteem sadness

I do not intend either to boast or abase myself

Ignorance into which the Greek clergy plunged the laity

In what do you believe?

Indignation can solace grief and restore happiness

Is he a dwarf or a giant

Is it not enough to have lived?

It is a pity that you must seek pastimes

Make a shroud of your virtue in which to bury your crimes

Man who suffers wishes to make her whom he loves suffer

Men doubted everything: the young men denied everything

No longer esteemed her highly enough to be jealous of her

Of all the sisters of love, the most beautiful is pity

Perfection does not exist

Pure caprice that I myself mistook for a flash of reason

Quarrel had been, so to speak, less sad than our reconciliation

Reading the Memoirs of Constant

Resorted to exaggeration in order to appear original

Sceptic regrets the faith he has lost the power to regain

Seven who are always the same: the first is called hope

She pretended to hope for the best

Sometimes we seem to enjoy unhappiness

"Speak to me of your love," she said, "not of your grief"

St. Augustine

Suffered, and yet took pleasure in it

Suspicions that are ever born anew

Terrible words; I deserve them, but they will kill me

There are two different men in you

Ticking of which (our arteries) can be heard only at night

"Unhappy man!" she cried, "you will never know how to love"

We have had a mass celebrated, and it cost us a large sum

What you take for love is nothing more than desire

What human word will ever express thy slightest caress

When passion sways man, reason follows him weeping and warning

Who has told you that tears can wash away the stains of guilt

Wine suffuses the face as if to prevent shame appearing there

You believe in what is said here below and not in what is done

You play with happiness as a child plays with a rattle

You turn the leaves of dead books

Your great weapon is silence

Youth is to judge of the world from first impressions

SERGE PANINE, By George Ohnet

A man weeps with difficulty before a woman

A uniform is the only garb which can hide poverty honorably

Antagonism to plutocracy and hatred of aristocrats

Because they moved, they thought they were progressing

Cowardly in trouble as he had been insolent in prosperity

Enough to be nobody's unless I belong to him

Even those who do not love her desire to know her

Everywhere was feverish excitement, dissipation, and nullity

Flayed and roasted alive by the critics

Forget a dream and accept a reality

Hard workers are pitiful lovers

He lost his time, his money, his hair, his illusions

He was very unhappy at being misunderstood

Heed that you lose not in dignity what you gain in revenge

I thought the best means of being loved were to deserve it

I don't pay myself with words

Implacable self-interest which is the law of the world

In life it is only nonsense that is common-sense

Is a man ever poor when he has two arms?

Is it by law only that you wish to keep me?

It was a relief when they rose from the table

Men of pleasure remain all their lives mediocre workers

Money troubles are not mortal

My aunt is jealous of me because I am a man of ideas

Negroes, all but monkeys!

Nothing that provokes laughter more than a disappointed lover

One amuses one's self at the risk of dying

Patience, should he encounter a dull page here or there

Romanticism still ferments beneath the varnish of Naturalism

Sacrifice his artistic leanings to popular caprice

Scarcely was one scheme launched when another idea occurred

She would have liked the world to be in mourning

Suffering is a human law; the world is an arena

Talk with me sometimes. You will not chatter trivialities

The guilty will not feel your blows, but the innocent

The uncontested power which money brings

They had only one aim, one passion—to enjoy themselves

Unqualified for happiness

We had taken the dream of a day for eternal happiness

What is a man who remains useless

Without a care or a cross, he grew weary like a prisoner

You are talking too much about it to be sincere

AN "ATTIC" PHILOSOPHER, By Emile Souvestre

Always to mistake feeling for evidence

Ambroise Pare: 'I tend him, God cures him!'

Are we then bound to others only by the enforcement of laws

Attach a sense of remorse to each of my pleasures

Brought them up to poverty

But above these ruins rises a calm and happy face

Carn-ival means, literally, "farewell to flesh!"

Coffee is the grand work of a bachelor's housekeeping

Contemptuous pride of knowledge

Death, that faithful friend of the wretched

Defeat and victory only displace each other by turns

Did not think the world was so great

Do they understand what makes them so gay?

Each of us regards himself as the mirror of the community

Ease with which the poor forget their wretchedness

Every one keeps his holidays in his own way

Fame and power are gifts that are dearly bought

Favorite and conclusive answer of his class—"I know"

Fear of losing a moment from business

Finishes his sin thoroughly before he begins to repent

Fortune sells what we believe she gives

Her kindness, which never sleeps

Houses are vessels which take mere passengers

Hubbub of questions which waited for no reply

I make it a rule never to have any hope

Ignorant of what there is to wish for

Looks on an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance

Make himself a name: he becomes public property

Moderation is the great social virtue

More stir than work

My patronage has become her property

No one is so unhappy as to have nothing to give

Not desirous to teach goodness

Nothing is dishonorable which is useful

Our tempers are like an opera-glass

Poverty, you see, is a famous schoolmistress

Power of necessity

Prisoners of work

Progress can never be forced on without danger

Question is not to discover what will suit us

Richer than France herself, for I have no deficit in my budget

Ruining myself, but we must all have our Carnival

Satisfy our wants, if we know how to set bounds to them

Sensible man, who has observed much and speaks little

So much confidence at first, so much doubt at las

Sullen tempers are excited by the patience of their victims

The happiness of the wise man costs but little

The man in power gives up his peace

Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hesitation

Virtue made friends, but she did not take pupils

We do not understand that others may live on their own account

We are not bound to live, while we are bound to do our duty

What have you done with the days God granted you

What a small dwelling joy can live

You may know the game by the lair

A WOODLAND QUEEN, By Andre Theuriet

Accustomed to hide what I think

Amusements they offered were either wearisome or repugnant

Consoled himself with one of the pious commonplaces

Dreaded the monotonous regularity of conjugal life

Fawning duplicity

Had not been spoiled by Fortune's gifts

How small a space man occupies on the earth

Hypocritical grievances

I am not in the habit of consulting the law

I measure others by myself

It does not mend matters to give way like that

Like all timid persons, he took refuge in a moody silence

More disposed to discover evil than good

Nature's cold indifference to our sufferings

Never is perfect happiness our lot

Opposing his orders with steady, irritating inertia

Others found delight in the most ordinary amusements

Plead the lie to get at the truth

Sensitiveness and disposition to self-blame

The ease with which he is forgotten

There are some men who never have had any childhood

Those who have outlived their illusions

Timidity of a night-bird that is made to fly in the day

To make a will is to put one foot into the grave

Toast and white wine (for breakfast)

Vague hope came over him that all would come right

Vexed, act in direct contradiction to their own wishes

Women: they are more bitter than death

Yield to their customs, and not pooh-pooh their amusements

You have considerable patience for a lover

You must be pleased with yourself—that is more essential