Chapter 1

This eBook was produced by David Widger

THE RED LILY

By Anatole France

A woman is frank when she does not lie uselessly

A hero must be human. Napoleon was human

Anti-Semitism is making fearful progress everywhere

Brilliancy of a fortune too new

Curious to know her face of that day

Disappointed her to escape the danger she had feared

Do you think that people have not talked about us?

Does not wish one to treat it with either timidity or brutality

Does one ever possess what one loves?

Each had regained freedom, but he did not like to be alone

Each was moved with self-pity

Everybody knows about that

Fringe which makes an unlovely border to the city

Gave value to her affability by not squandering it

He could not imagine that often words are the same as actions

He studied until the last moment

He is not intelligent enough to doubt

He does not bear ill-will to those whom he persecutes

He knew now the divine malady of love

Her husband had become quite bearable

His habit of pleasing had prolonged his youth

(Housemaid) is trained to respect my disorder

I love myself because you love me

I can forget you only when I am with you

I wished to spoil our past

I feel in them (churches) the grandeur of nothingness

I have to pay for the happiness you give me

I gave myself to him because he loved me

I haven't a taste, I have tastes

I have known things which I know no more

I do not desire your friendship

Ideas they think superior to love-- faith, habits, interests

Immobility of time

Impatient at praise which was not destined for himself

Incapable of conceiving that one might talk without an object

It was torture for her not to be able to rejoin him

It is an error to be in the right too soon

It was too late: she did not wish to win

Jealous without having the right to be jealous

Kissses and caresses are the effort of a delightful despair

Knew that life is not worth so much anxiety nor so much hope

Laughing in every wrinkle of his face

Learn to live without desire

Let us give to men irony and pity as witnesses and judges

Life as a whole is too vast and too remote

Life is made up of just such trifles

Life is not a great thing

Little that we can do when we are powerful

Love is a soft and terrible force, more powerful than beauty

Love was only a brief intoxication

Lovers never separate kindly

Made life give all it could yield

Magnificent air of those beggars of whom small towns are proud

Miserable beings who contribute to the grandeur of the past

Nobody troubled himself about that originality

None but fools resisted the current

Not everything is known, but everything is said

Nothing is so legitimate, so human, as to deceive pain

One would think that the wind would put them out: the stars

One who first thought of pasting a canvas on a panel

One is never kind when one is in love

One should never leave the one whom one loves

Picturesquely ugly

Recesses of her mind which she preferred not to open

Relatives whom she did not know and who irritated her

Seemed to him that men were grains in a coffee-mill

She pleased society by appearing to find pleasure in it

She is happy, since she likes to remember

Should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one

Simple people who doubt neither themselves nor others

Since she was in love, she had lost prudence

So well satisfied with his reply that he repeated it twice

Superior men sometimes lack cleverness

That sort of cold charity which is called altruism

That if we live the reason is that we hope

That absurd and generous fury for ownership

The most radical breviary of scepticism since Montaigne

The door of one's room opens on the infinite

The past is the only human reality -- Everything that is, is past

The one whom you will love and who will love you will harm you

The violent pleasure of losing

The discouragement which the irreparable gives

The real support of a government is the Opposition

The politician never should be in advance of circumstances

There is nothing good except to ignore and to forget

There are many grand and strong things which you do not feel

They are the coffin saying: 'I am the cradle'

To be beautiful, must a woman have that thin form

Trying to make Therese admire what she did not know

Umbrellas, like black turtles under the watery skies

Unfortunate creature who is the plaything of life

Was I not warned enough of the sadness of everything?

We are too happy; we are robbing life

What will be the use of having tormented ourselves in this world

Whether they know or do not know, they talk

Women do not always confess it, but it is always their fault

You must take me with my own soul!

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