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
dog demon obedient
Demons are like obedient dogs; they come when they are called.
understanding secret enough
If the secret of being a bore is to tell all, the secret of pleasing is to say just enough to be -not understood, but divined.
ocean past desire
And there is neither beginning nor end, nor past nor future; there is only a present, at the same time static and ephemeral, multiple and absolute. It is the vital ocean in which we all share, according to our strength, our needs or our desires.
art desire desire-to-live
Art includes everything that stimulates the desire to live
wisdom years two
For two thousand years Christianity has been telling us: life is death, death is life; it is high time to consult the dictionary.
often-is expression ideas
Cliche refers to words, commonplace to ideas. Cliche describes the form or the letter, commonplace the substance or spirit. To confuse them is to confuse the thought with the expression of the thought. The cliche is immediately perceivable; the commonplace very often escapes notice if decked out in original dress. There are few examples, in any literature, of new ideas expressed in original form. The most critical mind must often be content with one or the other of these pleasures, only too happy when it is not deprived of both at once, which is not too rarely the case.
liberty wealth curse
Money is the sign of liberty. To curse money is to curse liberty- to curse life, which is nothing, if it be not free.
sweet nature autumn
Autumn is as joyful and sweet as an untimely end.
drinking aberration peculiar
Of all the sexual aberrations, perhaps the most peculiar is chastity.
beauty art expression
Since art is the expression of beauty and beauty can be understood only in the form of the material elements of the true idea it contains, art has become almost uniquely feminine. Beauty is woman, and also art is woman.
war humanity favors
Industry has operated against the artisan in favor of the idler, and also in favor of capital and against labor. Any mechanical invention whatsoever has been more harmful to humanity than a century of war.
life flower injustice
Nothing exists except by virtue of a disequilibrium, an injustice. All existence is a theft paid for by other existences; no life flowers except on a cemetery.
men ends loving-love
Man begins by loving love and ends by loving a woman. Woman begins by loving a man and ends by loving love.
art knowledge desire
Art includes everything that stimulates the desire to live; science, everything that sharpens the desire to know. Art, even the most disinterested, the most disembodied, is the auxiliary of life.