Edmond de Goncourt Quotes

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

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in God, Religion

  Tags in Atheism, Seem

• A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Art

  Tags in Museum, Painting

• Genius is the talent of a person who is dead.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Genius

  Tags in Talent

• Debauchery is perhaps an act of despair in the face of infinity.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Despair, Act

• Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Historians, Novelists

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Barbarism

• As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Truth

  Tags in Moral, Impression

• A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Poet

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Honest, Nation

• People don’t like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People

• That which, perhaps, hears more nonsense than anything in the world, is a picture in a museum.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Picture, Museum

• Man is a mind betrayed, not served, by his organs.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Man, Mind

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Imagination

• 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

  Topics in Age

Edmond de Goncourt (14)

Birth:	26th May, 1822
Death:	16th July, 1896
Nationality:	French
Profession:	Critic, Novelist, Publisher

About

Edmond de Goncourt was born in Nancy, France. He was a French novelist, literary critic, art critic, book publisher and the founder of the Académie Goncourt. In honour of his brother and collaborator, Jules de Goncourt, each December since 1903, the Académie awards the Prix Goncourt. It is the most prestigious prize in French language literature, given to "the best imaginary prose work of the year".

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