Sidonie Gabrielle Colette Quotes
"A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Childhood, Poor, Preparation)
"A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Men, Pretty, Spiders, Terror)
"A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Rights, Man, Woman)
"As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Artist)
"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."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Heart, Country, Name, Past)
"Be happy. It's one way of being wise."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Being)
"You do not notice changes in what is always before you."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
"Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Time, Idleness, Light)
"There is no need to waste pity on young girls who are having their moments of disillusionment, for in another moment they will recover their illusion."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Disillusionment, Girls, Moments, Pity, Waste, Will)
"The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
"The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Time)
"The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Men, Rights, Woman)
"There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Freedom, Poison, Solitude, Wine)
"The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Excess, Faults, Husbands, Wives)
"To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Silence)
"Total absence of humor renders life impossible."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Humor, Life, Absence)
"Writing only leads to more writing."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Writing)
"Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Pity, Worth, Writer)
"You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Old, Pity)
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Enthusiasm, Will)
"If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Life)
"It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Children, Parents)
"I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Love, Past, Present)
"In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Absence, Ugliness)
"In its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
"Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Modesty, Sincerity)
"It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanism of friendship."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Friendship, Oil, Politeness)
"January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Evil)
"Jealousy is not at all low, but it catches us humbled and bowed down, at first sight."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: First, Jealousy, Sight)
"Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Feet)
"My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Devotion, Friends, Man, Proof)
"Never touch a butterfly's wing with your finger."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
"No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Temptation, Value)
"On this narrow planet, we have only the choice between two unknown worlds. One of them tempts us - ah! what a dream, to live in that! - the other stifles us at the first breath."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Dream, Choice, First)
"One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Age, Grave, Old)
"Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Time)