Remy de Gourmont
Remy de Gourmont
Remy de Gourmontwas a French Symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars and Georges Bataille. The spelling Rémy de Gourmont is incorrect, albeit common and used by Ezra Pound in translations of his work...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth4 April 1858
CountryFrance
bored imbeciles contemplating
An imbecile is never bored: he contemplates himself.
art flower giving
Art is the flower of life and, as seed, it gives back life.
knows
To know what everyone knows is to know nothing.
wine men bags
Man, in spite of his tendency towards mendacity, has a great respect for what he calls the truth. Truth is his staff in his voyage through life; commonplaces are the bread in his bag and the wine in his jug.
doe
God is not all that exists. God is all that does not exist.
art born turns
Born of the sensibility, art sows and creates life in its turn.
knowledge ideas ends
Knowledge has its end in itself, apart from any idea of life and propagation of the species.
needs intellect organs
Intelligence, that sublimation of the sensibility, that organ of the need to know, is sterilized sensibility.
book good-book
Good books are irrefutable, and bad books refute themselves.
wisdom truth quests
The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it.
hypocrisy modesty form
Modesty is the delicate form of hypocrisy.
men individuality suits
Each man must grant himself the emotions that he needs and the morality that suits him.
men stupidity invention
Man is the inventor of stupidity.
funny-love kissing men
Women still remember the first kiss after men have forgotten the last.