Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly Quotes

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

If writers only dared to dare, a Suetonius or a Tacitus of the Novel could exist, for the Novel is essentially the history of manners, turned into a story and a play, as is History itself often enough. And there is no other difference than this: that the one, the Novel, cloaks its manners under the disguise of invented characters, while the other, History, provides names and addresses. Only, the Novel probes much deeper than history. It has an ideal, and History has none; it is limited by reality. The Novel also holds the stage much longer. ("A Woman's Vengeance")

He had a reputation in society as a man with a lively wit, whose gaiety was pleasant and formidable – which all gaiety must be in a society which would despise you if, while amusing it, you did not make it tremble a little. ("A Woman's Vengeance")

Extreme civilization robs crime of its frightful poetry, and prevents the writer from restoring it. That would be too dreadful, say those good souls who want everything to be prettified, even the horrible. In the name of philanthropy, imbecile criminologists reduce the punishment, and inept moralists the crime, and what is more they reduce the crime only in order to reduce the punishment. Yet the crimes of extreme civilization are undoubtedly more atrocious than those of extreme barbarism, by virtue of their refinement, of the corruption they imply and of their superior degree of intellectualism. ("A Woman's Vengeance")

Hatred needs scorn. Scorn is hatred's nectar!

Fools – in other words most people – imagine that it would be a wonderful achievement to be able to recover our youth; but those who know life are aware how little it would profit us. ("A Woman's Vengeance")

For a decadent like Baudelaire the only possible ends are suicide or the foot of the cross

Men are all the same. Novelty amongst themselves displeases and upsets them – but if the novelty is wearing a skirt, they go crazy for it.

(Les hommes sont tous les mêmes. L'étrangeté leur déplaît, d'homme à homme, et les blesse ; mais si l'étrangeté porte des jupes, ils en raffolent.)

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

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

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

She was as inept at causing pain as she was at giving pleasure. Strange lioness, indeed! She thought she possessed claws, but when she tried to bare them, nothing emerged from her magnificent velvet paws. Her scratches were of velvet!

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

My good fellow," said Mesnil, stopping, "ever since the creation of the world there have been men like me specially intended to astonish men...men like you.