Sidonie Gabrielle Colette Quotes
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A kindly gesture bestowed by us on an animal arouses prodigies of understanding and gratitude.
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No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.
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A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.
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A few days later, I found my mother beneath the tree, motionless with excitement, her head turned toward the heavens in which she would allow human religions no place.
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The word 'pure' has never revealed an intelligent meaning to me. I can only use the word to quench an optical thirst for purity in the transparencies that evoke it - in bubbles, in a volume of water, and in the imaginary latitudes entrenched, beyond reach, at the very center of a dense crystal.
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Researchers, with science as their authority, will be able to cut animals up, alive, into small pieces, drop them from a great height to see if they are shattered by the fall, or deprive them of sleep for sixteen days and nights continuously for the purposes of an iniquitous monograph. . . . Animal trust, undeserved faith, when at last will you turn away from us? Shall we never tire of deceiving, betraying, tormenting animals before they cease to trust us?
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I have found my voice again and the art of using it.
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It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
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At the top of the iron staircase leading to the stage, the good, dry, dusty warmth wraps me round like a comfortable dirty cloak.
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It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.
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But what is the heart, madame? It's worth less than people think. it's quite accommodating, it accepts anything. You give it whatever you have, it's not very particular. But the body... Ha! That's something else again! It has a cultivated taste, as they say, it knows what it wants. A heart doesn't choose, and one always ends up by loving.
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The only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.
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I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.
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Beautiful December grapes, blue as plums, every grape a little skinful of sweet, tasteless water.
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I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.
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I've entered the world of wine without any professional training, but a definite appetite for good bottles.
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Be happy. It's one way of being wise.
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Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you.
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Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.
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A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men...
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One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.
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To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
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By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet.
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In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.