Goncourt brothers Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what untrained eyes consider abominable.

Goncourt brothers
In the language of the bourgeoisie, the grandeur of the words is in direct proportion to the pettiness of the sentiments.

Goncourt brothers
A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.

Goncourt brothers
The art of pleasing consists in never speaking of oneself and always talking to others of themselves. Every one is aware of this, yet how often is it forgotten.

Goncourt brothers
One of the proud joys of the man of letters—if that man of letters is an artist—is to feel within himself the power to immortalize at will anything he chooses to immortalize. Insignificant though he may be, he is conscious of possessing a creative divinity. God creates lives; the man of imagination creates fictional lives which may make a more profound and as it were more living impression on the world's memory.

Goncourt brothers
Critics must have been created on the seventh day. Because if God had created them on the first day, what on earth would they have done?

Goncourt brothers
The newspaper is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.

Goncourt brothers
If there is a God, atheism must strike Him as less of an insult than religion.

Goncourt brothers
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.

Goncourt brothers