Octave Mirbeau Quotes

Nature's constantly screaming with all its shapes and scents: love each other! Love each other! Do as the flowers. There's only love. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Everything she heard, everything she saw seemed to be in disagreement with her own manner of understanding and feeling. To her, the sun did not appear red enough, the nights pale enough, the skies deep enough. Her fleeting conception of things and beings condemned her fatally to a perversion of her senses, to vagaries of the spirit and left her nothing but the torment of an unachieved longing, the torture of unfulfilled desires. ~ Octave Mirbeau

While all is new, all is beautiful. That is a well-known song. Yes, and the next day the air changes into another one equally well known. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Think what it must be like for a victim about to die under torture. Think how the torture must be multiplied in his flesh and soul with the splendour that surrounds him! And how his agony must become more atrocious, more desperately atrocious, dearest heart!"
"I was thinking about love," I replied reproachfully. "And you continuously talk about torture!"
"Why not - since it's the same thing! ~ Octave Mirbeau

You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens ... the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her ... a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them; she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes, cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little ... little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it's fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day. ~ Octave Mirbeau

On the street, men appeared to me like mad ghosts, old skeletons out of joint, whose bones, badly strung together, were falling to the pavement with a strange noise. I saw the necks turning on top of broken spinal columns, hanging upon disjointed clavicles, arms sundered from the trunks, the trunks themselves losing their shape. And all these scraps of human bodies, stripped of their flesh by death, were rushing upon one another, forever spurred on by a homicidal fever, forever driven by pleasure, and they were fighting over foul carrion. ~ Octave Mirbeau

The greatest danger of a terrorist's bomb is in the explosion of stupidity that it provokes. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Great ladies ... are like the best sauces
it is better not to know how they are made. ~ Octave Mirbeau

To take something from a person and keep it for oneself: that is robbery. To take something from one person and then turn it over to another in exchange for as much money as you can get: that is business. Robbery is so much more stupid, since it is satisfied with a single, frequently dangerous profit; whereas in business it can be doubled without danger. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Sheep run to the slaughterhouse, silent and hopeless, but at least sheep never vote for the butcher who kills them or the people who devour them. More beastly than any beast, more sheepish than any sheep, the voter names his own executioner and chooses his own devourer, and for this precious 'right' a revolution was fought. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Children, by nature, are keen, passionate and curious. What was referred to as laziness is often merely an awakening of sensitivity, a psychological inability to submit to certain absurd duties, and a natural result of the distorted, unbalanced education given to them. This laziness, which leads to an insuperable reluctance to learn, is, contrary to appearances, sometimes proof of intellectual superiority and a condemnation of the teacher. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he will always see that word: murder - immortally inscribed upon the pediment of that vast slaughterhouse - humanity. ~ Octave Mirbeau

I desire her and I hate her. I would like to take her in my arms and embrace her till she smothered, till she was crushed and I could drink death from her gushing veins. ~ Octave Mirbeau

But one gets tired of everything, even of abusing a person. Paris abandons its puppets which it raises to the throne as quickly as it does its martyrs whom it hoists on the gibbet; in its perpetual hunger for new playthings, it never gets itself excited overly much before the statues of its heroes or at the sight of the blood of its victims. ~ Octave Mirbeau

I was thinking of love,' I replied in a tone of reproach, 'and here you are talking to me again - forever - about torture!'
'Doubtless! since it's the same thing - ~ Octave Mirbeau

I did not know what she suffered from, but I knew that her malady must have been horrible; I knew that from the way she used to embrace me. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Alas, the gates of life never swing open except upon death, never open except upon the palaces and
gardens of death. And the universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden ... What I
say today, and what I heard, exists and cries and howls beyond this garden, which is no more than a
symbol to me of the entire earth. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call monsters are superior forms, or forms beyond your understanding. Aren't the gods monsters? Isn't a man of genius a monster, like a tiger or a spider, like all individuals who live beyond social lies, in the dazzling and divine immortality of things? Why, I too then-am a monster! ~ Octave Mirbeau

Perverse? Because they obey the only law of life; because they are satisfied with the only need of life, which is love? But consider, milady, the flower is only a reproductive organ. Is there anything healthier, stronger, or more beautiful than that? These marvelous petals, these silks, these velvets... these soft, supple, and caressing materials are the curtains of the alcove, the draperies of the bridal chamber, the perfumed bed where they unite, where they pass their ephemeral and immortal life, swooning with love. What an admirable example for us!" he spread the petals of the flower, counted the stamens laden with pollen, and he spoke again, his eyes swimming in a comical ecstasy: "See, milady; one, two, five, ten, twenty. See how they quiver! Look! Sometimes twenty males are required for the delight of a single female! he! he! he! Sometimes it's the opposite." one by one he tore off the petals of the flower: "And when they are gorged with love, then the curtains of the bed are torn away, the draperies of the chamber wither and fall; and the flowers die, because they know well they have nothing more to do. They die, to be reborn later, and once again, to love! ~ Octave Mirbeau

The universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden ... Passions, greed, hatred, and lies; social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering. ~ Octave Mirbeau

While I was an honorable man in her eyes, she did not love me. But the minute she understood what I was, when she breathed the true and foul odor of my soul, love was born in her – for she does love me! Well, well! There is nothing real, then, except evil. ~ Octave Mirbeau

The greatest danger of bombs is in the explosion of stupidity that they provoke. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Why, flowers are violent, cruel, terrible, splendid ... like love. ~ Octave Mirbeau

To Priests, Soldiers, Judges- to men who rear, lead or govern men I dedicate these pages of murder and blood. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Have you ever been at a festival when you were sad or ill? Well, then you've felt how much your sadness was irritated and exasperated, as by an insult, by the joyful faces and the beauty of things. It's an intolerable feeling. Think of what it must mean to a victim who is going to die under torture. Think how much the torture is multiplied in his flesh and his soul by all the splendour which surrounds him; and how much more atrocious is his agony, how much more hopelessly atrocious, darling! ~ Octave Mirbeau

Come now, don't make such a funeral face. It isn't dying that's sad; it's living when you're not happy. ~ Octave Mirbeau

The poor are the human manure in which grow the harvests of life, the harvests of joy which the rich reap. ~ Octave Mirbeau

For to arrive somewhere means to die! ~ Octave Mirbeau

You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That'€s the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Yes, there are some backs on the street
which cry for the knife. ~ Octave Mirbeau

As soon as I find myself in the presence of a rich man, I cannot help looking upon him as an exceptional and beautiful being, as a sort of marvellous divinity, and, in spite of myself, surmounting my will and my reason, I feel rising, from the depths of my being, toward this rich man, who is very often an imbecile, and sometimes a murderer, something like an incense of admiration. Is it not stupid? And why? Why? ~ Octave Mirbeau

Murder is born of love, and love attains the greatest intensity in murder. ~ Octave Mirbeau

The Occidental snobbery which is invading us, the gunboats, rapid-fire guns, long-range rifles, explosives ... what else? Everything which makes death collective, administrative and bureaucratic - all the filth of your progress, in fact - is destroying, little by little, our beautiful traditions of the past. ~ Octave Mirbeau

VOTERS STRIKE!
...above all, remember that he who solicits your vote is by that very fact revealed as a scoundrel, since in exchange for your advantage and fortune he promises a cornucopia of marvels he'll never deliver because he hasn't the power to deliver them. the man you elect represents neither your misery nor your aspirations- nor anything else of yours- but rather his own interests, which are all opposed to yours...do not imagine that the sorry spectacle at which you assist today is peculiar to one epoch or one regime, and that it will pass away. all epochs and all regimes are worth the same- that is, they are worthless. so go home, my good chap, and go on strike against universal suffrage. I tell you, you've nothing to lose... and at least it should keep you amused for a while. I tell you, good chap! go home! go on strike! ~ Octave Mirbeau

I understood that the law of the world was strife; an inexorable, murderous law, which was not content with arming nation against nation but which hurled against one another the children of the same race, the same family, the same womb. I found none of the lofty abstractions of honor, justice, charity, patriotism of which our standard books are so full, on which we are brought up, with which we are lulled to sleep, through which they hypnotize us in order the better to deceive the kind little folk, to enslave them the more easily, to butcher them the more foully. ~ Octave Mirbeau

(Our) thoughts feelings, and loves are a whirlwind. Everywhere life is rushing insanely like a cavalry charge. . . . Everything around a man jumps, dances, gallops in a movement out of phase with his own. ~ Octave Mirbeau

Life is filled with all goods and bads around each one of us,It's our rights to choose the path and we are responsible of all our deeds and consequences. ~ OctavE Life

My mother says it is totally fine
if I blow off steam
as long as I speak in an octave
my kindness can still reach. ~ Andrea Gibson

Then a shadow swooped under me, and thump - I was on Blackjack's back. It wasn't the most comfortable landing. In fact, when I yelled "OW!" my voice was an octave higher than usual. ~ Rick Riordan

Hey." The sound came out of him an octave deeper than all the others. "Can I ask your opinion on something else?"
"Yeah. Sure."
"What's your opinion on kissing me?"
I stopped breathing, aware that if I kept doing it, it would be all shaky and quivering. Utterly humiliating.
"I mean, not right now." I was so grateful Lincoln continued talking so his words could mask the nervous vibration in my exhale. I desperately needed another breath. Things were getting that fuzzy rimmed blackness that precluded passing out. "But, like, someday. Like, can I someday kiss you? Even if someday is really far off. Would that be okay?"
"I think that might be okay. Someday. ~ Megan Squires

Helen, don't."
"I thought it was only a misunderstanding. I thought if I spoke to you directly, everything would be s-sorted out, and - " Another sob choked her. She was so consumed by emotion that she was only vaguely aware of Rhys hovering around her, reaching for her and snatching his hands back.
"No. Don't cry. For God's sake, Helen - "
"I didn't mean to push you away. I didn't know what to do. How can I make you want me again?"
She expected a jeering reply, or perhaps even a pitying one. The last thing she expected was his shaken murmur.
"I do want you, cariad. I want you too damned much."
She blinked at him through a bewildered blur, breathing in mortifying hiccups, like a child. In the next moment, he had hauled her firmly against him.
"Hush, now." His voice dropped to a deeper octave, a brush of dark velvet against her ears. "Hush, bychan, little one, my dove. Nothing is worth your tears."
"You are. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Most women indulge in idle gossip, which is the henchman of rumor and scandal. ~ Octave Feuillet

Next to the disapproval of our friends, the approval of our enemies is most to be dreaded. ~ Octave Feuillet

As they walked out onto Second Avenue, with David in a body bag, there was one last surreal moment. The singer and composer Diamanda Galás happened to be walking by. She and David had never met, but they'd spoken once on the phone. She shared his commitment to addressing AIDS, in her case through 'The Plague Mass,' which showcased her five-octave range and fierce persona.
Galás does not remember being on Second Avenue that night, but she made an indelible impression on Zimmerman and Glantzman.
She had walked by, but as they were putting David into the hearse, she spun around and ran back, yelling, 'Who is that? Is that David Wojnarowicz?' Zimmerman and Brown didn't answer. What Glantzman remembers is that Diamanda Galás was there at the door, screaming. 'As if our feelings were amplified,' said Glantzman. 'Hysterical screaming. ~ Cynthia Carr

This approach to voice is designed to liberate the natural voice and thereby develop a vocal technique that serves the freedom of human expression. The basic assumption of the work is that everyone possesses a voice capable of expressing, through a two- to four-octave natural pitch range, whatever gamut of emotion, complexity of mood, and subtlety of thought he or she experiences. ~ Kristin Linklater

It is this outer reach of existential abnegation – the moment where subjective identity deserts itself and becomes enslaved without consciousness of its subjugated condition – that Mirbeau consistently sought to decry with horror. ~ Emily Apter

If there be one man, more than another, who deserves to succeed in flying through the air, that man is Mr. Laurence Hargrave, of Sydney, New South Wales. ~ Octave Chanute

Wilbur, as George Spratt once told Octave Chanute, was "always ready to oppose an idea expressed by anybody," ready to "jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up." And as Wilbur himself would explain to Spratt, he believed in "a good scrap." It brought out "new ways of looking at things," helped "round off the corners." It was characteristic of all his family, Wilbur said, to be able to see the weak points of anything. ~ David McCullough

History was an artist, maintaining the idea but changing the details, like a composer keeping the same theme but dulling it to a minor or lifting by an octave, now crooning it with violins, now blaring it on trumpets. ~ George R. Stewart

Kindness is the only charm permitted to the aged; it is the coquetry of white hairs. ~ Octave Feuillet

The machine may even carry mail is special cases. But the useful load will be very small. The machines will eventually be fast, they will be used in sport, but they are not to be thought of as commercial carriers. ~ Octave Chanute

Actually," Coursey lowered his voice an octave, "we've been informed by Homeland Security that three members of a subversive Brazilian band went through Customs at O'Hare Airport eleven days ago. ~ J.A. Konrath

And she laughed, a full octave, descending from high C like chimes. ~ Mary Doria Russell

If ... [Alban] Berg departs so radically from tradition, through his substitution of a symmetrical partitioning of the octave for the asymmetrical partionings of the major/minor system, he departs just as radically from the twelve-tone tradition that is represented in the music of Schoenberg and Webern, for whom the twelve-tone series was always an integral structure that could be transposed only as a unit, and for whom twelve-tone music always implied a constant and equivalent circulation of the totality of pitch classes. ~ George Perle

Some people say I've got a five-octave range, which is ridiculous. That would mean I'd sing like Mariah Carey or that alien in 'The Fifth Element.' And I'm nothing like that blue alien. I've got a range of about 3 1/2 octaves. ~ Mika.

Amis is acutely, vibrantly sensitive to the different registers of laughter. He knows that it can be the most affirming and uniquely human sound, and also the most sinister and animalistic one. He understands every note of every octave that separates the liberating shout of mirth from the cackle of a bully or the snigger of a sadist. ~ Martin Amis

I believe the new machine of the Wrights to be the most promising attempt at flight that has yet been made. ~ Octave Chanute

I have never written the music that was in my heart to write; perhaps I never shall with this brain and these fingers, but I know that hereafter it will be written; when instead of these few inlets of the senses through which we now secure impressions from without, there shall be a flood of impressions from all sides; and instead of these few tones of our little octave, there shall be an infinite scale of harmonies - for I feel it - I am sure of it. This world of music, whose borders even now I have scarcely entered, is a reality, is immortal. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The octave formed a circle and gave our noble earth its form. ~ Pythagoras

When we love, we are the universe and the universe lives in us. ~ Octave Pirmez

And why should I believe you?"

His tone dropped to a dangerous octave. "Because there are very few people I have never lied to." He passed me to open the door. "You are one of them."

He stalked down the hall toward the elevator without even a glance back. ~ Lisa Kessler

She slid a look toward him, one edge of her mouth tilting up. "My Mama told me to watch out for boys like you."
"Your Mama was right," his voice dropped an octave, "but I am not a boy. ~ Mary Jane Hathaway

Providence has so ordained it, that only two women have a true interest in the happiness of a man
his own mother, and the mother of his children. Besides these two legitimate kinds of love, there is nothing between the two creatures except vain excitement, painful and vain delusion. ~ Octave Feuillet

Everyone has his reasons." Octave (Jean Renoir) in "The Rules of the Game. ~ Jean Renoir

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The highest octave kundalini is the golden light which occurs in the supraconscious; it is the supraconscious. It's what they call Sat Chit Ananda - existence, consciousness, bliss ... full consciousness. ~ Frederick Lenz

Aunt Léonie who, after the death of her husband, my Uncle Octave, no longer wished to leave, first Combray, then within Combray her house, then her bedroom, then her bed and no longer 'came down', always lying in an uncertain state of grief, physical debility, illness, obsession and piety. ~ Marcel Proust

Her voice rose to a Vincent Price octave. Yes, I'm wandering the earth, seeking revenge on Ben and Jerry for giving me the fat ass and massive coronary. And I give out love advice to the tragically lonely. ~ Molly Harper

Frank [Zappa] always wanted to do a sound library - he sampled so many great musicians. For piano, for example, he sampled every octave, not just one (that you could just transpose electronically), and he did all different types of attack, with and without pedals, all that kind of stuff. ~ Gail Zappa

When I was younger, I'd make a point of driving to the middle of nowhere and spending an evening with just me, the wind, and the moon. Your skin crawls up an octave. This is what I tap into when I'm working on horror films. I'm just afraid a time will come when I lose touch with that part of myself. ~ Christopher Young

Someone's dead," said Malfoy, and his voice seemed to go up an octave as he said it. "One of your people ... I don't know who, it was dark ... I stepped over the body ... I was supposed to be waiting up here when you got back, only your Phoenix lot got in the way. ~ J.K. Rowling

Through, like the kind that spring up on the most perfect summer days, tossing the leaves of the trees and flowing past like heavenly water. A divine breeze. It changed everything, shifting the world around me into an even higher octave, a higher vibration. Although I still had little language ~ Eben Alexander

In accordance with the foregoing investigations on mathematical principles, let bronze vessels be made, proportionate to the size of the theatre, and let them be so fashioned that, when touched, they may produce with one another the notes of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up the double octave. ~ Marcus Vitruvius Pollio