Octave Mirbeau Professions : JournalistBorn : February 16, 1848Died : February 16, 1917 Browse All Authors Top 23 quotes by Octave Mirbeau When one tears away the veils and shows them naked, people's souls give off such a pungent smell of decay. Octave Mirbeau smellgivingpeople 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 namessheeprunning 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. Octave Mirbeau fashionangerthinking 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 intellectualteacherchildren 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 eyerealmen Solitude does not consist in living alone; it consists in living with others, with people who take no interest in you. Octave Mirbeau solitudedoepeople The greatest danger of a terrorist's bomb is in the explosion of stupidity that it provokes. Octave Mirbeau bombsterrorismstupidity Desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual ideal of hell and its horror. Octave Mirbeau horrordesiregiving 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 scentshapesflower Great ladies ... are like the best sauces -- it is better not to know how they are made. Octave Mirbeau womensaucemade 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 businessstupiddanger 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 stupidbeautifulmen 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 passionflowerlying 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 murderhumanitydoe There is a diabolical streak in me, a troublesome and inexplicable perversity. Octave Mirbeau inexplicablemental-illnessdepression Why, flowers are violent, cruel, terrible and splendid... like love! Octave Mirbeau like-loveviolentflower Nothing comes at all -- never anything. And I cannot accustom myself to that. It is this monotony, this absolute fixity in life, that is the hardest thing for me to endure. I should like to go away from here. Go away? But where and how? I do not know, and I stay. Octave Mirbeau going-awayshouldlife The poor are the human manure in which grow the harvests of life, the harvests of joy which the rich reap. Octave Mirbeau richpovertyjoy 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 funeraldyingfaces 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 songbeautifulbeauty Similar Authors Irving Bacheller journalist Bill Keller journalist Bob Woodward journalist Bolesław Prus journalist Buzz Bissinger journalist Burton Rascoe journalistAll Authors
