Jules Goncourt Quotes (9 Quotes)

Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum.

I feel sure that coups d'tat would go much better if there were seats, boxes, and stalls so that one could see what was happening and not miss anything

Never speak of yourself to others make them talk about themselves instead therein lies the whole art of pleasing. Everybody knows it, and everyone forgets it.

Any man who does not see everything in terms of self, that is to say who wants to be something in respect of other men, to do good to them or simply give them something to do, is unhappy, disconsolate, and accursed.

One of the proud joys of the man of letters --if that man of letters is an artist is to feel within himself the power to immortalize at will anything he chooses to immortalize. Insignificant though he may be, he is conscious of possessing a creative divinity. God creates lives the man of imagination creates fictional lives which may make a profound and as it were more living impression on the world's memory.

There are moments when, faced with our lack of success, I wonder whether we are failures, proud but impotent. One thing reassures me as to our value the boredom that afflicts us. It is the hall-mark of quality in modern men.

A painting in a museum probably hears more foolish remarks than anything else in the world.

If there is a God, atheism must strike Him as less of an insult than religion.

The facts nothing matters but the facts worship of the facts leads to everything, to happiness first of all and then to wealth.