Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly, Les Diaboliques Quotes

For in Paris, whenever God puts a pretty woman there (the streets), the Devil, in reply, immediately puts a fool to keep her.

Yet, whether to the glory or to the shame of human nature, in what we call pleasure (with an excess of scorn, perhaps) there are abysses as deep as those of love.

They had...finished their lives before their death – which is not always the end of life and often comes long before the end.

Beauty is single. Only ugliness is multiple, and even then its multiplicity is soon exhausted.

Men are all the same. Novelty amongst themselves displeases and upsets them – but if the novelty is wearing a skirt, they go crazy f

He was terrified by the sublime horror of it, for intensity of feeling, carried to this degree, is sublime. ("A Woman's Vengeance")