35+ Edmond de Goncourt Quotes On Education, Literary And Realism

Edmond de Goncourt was a French writer and critic of the 19th century. He was the founder, along with his brother Jules, of the Académie Goncourt, which awards an annual prize for French literature. He is best known for his novel Germinie Lacerteux, which was published posthumously in 1865. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Edmond de Goncourt on love, education, literary.

Top 10 Edmond De Goncourt Quotes

1. A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.
2. If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.
3. Debauchery is perhaps an act of despair in the face of infinity.
4. A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.
5. People don't like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug.
6. A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.
7. As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.
8. That which, perhaps, hears more nonsense than anything in the world, is a picture in a museum.
9. Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.
10. That ephemeral sheet,... the newspaper, is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.

Edmond De Goncourt Short Quotes

• Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum.
• Man is a mind betrayed, not served, by his organs.
• History is a novel that has been lived, a novel is history that could have been.
• Princes enjoy themselves like children in the company of ordinary human beings.
• Statistics is the first of the inexact sciences.
• Sickness sensitizes man for observation, like a photographic plate.
• Genius is the talent of a person who is dead.

Edmond de Goncourt Quotes About Love

Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists... When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence. — Edmond de Goncourt

Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists. When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence. — Edmond de Goncourt

She is unable to dream, think or love. In a woman, poetry never comes naturally, but always as the result of education. Only the woman of the world is a woman; the rest are simply females. — Edmond de Goncourt

Edmond de Goncourt Famous Quotes And Sayings

There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries. — Edmond de Goncourt

Barbarism is needed every four or five hundred years to bring the world back to life. Otherwise it would die of civilization. — Edmond de Goncourt

Laughter is the mind's intonation. There are ways of laughing which have the sound of counterfeit coins. — Edmond de Goncourt

There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what the untrained eyes consider abominable. — Edmond de Goncourt

The facts: nothing matters but the facts: worship of the facts leads to everything, to happiness first of all and then to wealth. — Edmond de Goncourt

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. — Edmond de Goncourt

The reason for the sadness of this modern age and the men who live in it is that it looks for the truth in everything and finds it. — Edmond de Goncourt

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. — Edmond de Goncourt

Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person, and as such is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as the winds? There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what the untrained eyes consider abominable. — Edmond de Goncourt

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. — Edmond de Goncourt

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. — Edmond de Goncourt

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. — Edmond de Goncourt

The English are crooked as a nation and honest as individuals. The contrary is true of the French, who are honest as a nation and crooked as individuals. — Edmond de Goncourt

The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are. The facts: nothing matters but the facts: worship of the facts leads to everything, to happiness first of all and then to wealth. — Edmond de Goncourt

I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin. — Edmond de Goncourt

Life Lessons by Edmond de Goncourt

1. Edmond de Goncourt's work often emphasizes the importance of self-expression and creativity, encouraging readers to find their own unique voice and pursue their passions.
2. He also emphasizes the importance of empathy and understanding, advocating for a more compassionate and tolerant approach to life.
3. Finally, he encourages readers to be open-minded and to embrace change, emphasizing the value of learning from new experiences and perspectives.