Jules Renard's Quotes

I finally know what distinguishes man from the other beasts: financial worries.

Talent is a matter of quantity. Talent does not write on page, it writes three hundred.

The bourgeois are other people.

The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.

The reward of great men is that, long after they have died, one is not quite sure that they are dead.

We are so happy to advise others that occasionally we even do it in their interest.

We spend our lives talking about this mystery. Our life.

Words are the small change of thought.

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.

Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.

Failure is not our only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.

It doesn't pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke, Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he'll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn't say.

If you are afraid of being lonely, don't try to be right.

The danger of success is that it makes us forget the world's dreadful injustice.

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.

As I grow to understand life less and less I grow to love it more and more.

It is not how old you are, but how you are old.

Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.

Don't tell a woman she's pretty; tell her there's no other woman like her, and all roads will open to you.

I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't.

There are moments when everything goes well, but don't be frightened.

Truth makes many appeals, not the least of which is its power to shock.

Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins.