Jules Renard

Our dream dashes itself against the great mystery like a wasp against a window pane. Less merciful than man, God never opens the window.

Certainly there are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.

Talent is a question of quantity. Talent does not write one page: it writes three hundred.

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

It astounds us to come upon other egoists, as though we alone had the right to be selfish, and be filled with eagerness to live.

Life is what our character makes it. We fashion it, as a snail does its shell. A man can say: “I never made a fortune because it is not in my character to be rich."

The void yields up nothing. You have to be a great poet to make it ring.

We are in the world to laugh. In purgatory or in hell we shall no longer be able to do so. And in heaven it would not be proper.

Do not ask me to be land; just ask me to act as though I were.

There is a justice, but we do not always see it. Discreet, smiling, it is there, at one side, a little behind injustice, which makes a big noise.

It is not enough to be happy, it is also necessary that others not be.

God, he whom everyone knows, by name.

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

I am afraid I shall not find Him [God]: but I shall still look for Him, if He exists. He may be appreciative of my efforts.

Clarity is the politeness of the man of letters.

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

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

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

I am not sincere, not even when I say I am not.

Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.

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

Look for the ridiculous in everything and you find it.

I find that when I do not think of myself I do not think at all.

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

The truly free man is he who knows how to decline a dinner invitation without giving an excuse.

The idea of calm exists in a sitting cat.

A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea.

Laziness is nothing more than resting before you get tired.

I am never bored anywhere; being bored is an insult to oneself.

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

If one were to build the house of happiness, the largest space would be the waiting room.

Words: the pieces of change in the currency of a sentence. They must not get in the way. There is always too much small change.