There are moments when everything goes well, but don’t be frightened.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Fear
Failure is not the only punishment for laziness;
there is also the success of others.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Failure, Laziness
Look for the ridiculous in everything, and you will find it.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Optimism, Positive Attitudes
The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Excuses
Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent o people who have none.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Occupation
The reward of great men is that, long after they have died, one is not quite sure that they are dead.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Results
We are so happy to advise others that occasionally we even do it in their interest.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Advice
To succeed you must add water to your wine, until there is no more wine.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Wine
We spend our lives talking about this mystery. Our life.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Existence
Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Pride
The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Writing
When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Boredom
I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Atheism
It’s not how old you are, it’s how you are old.
—Jules Renard
Love is like an hour-glass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Kindness
Words are the small change of thought.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Words
The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Cats
I am never bored anywhere: being bored is an insult to oneself.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Boredom
Truth makes many appeals, not the least of which is its power to shock.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Truth
If I were to begin life again,
I should want it as it was.
I would only open my eyes a little more.
—Jules Renard
Don’t tell a woman she’s pretty; tell her there’s no other woman like her, and all roads will open to you.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Praise, Compliments
There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Solitude
I finally know what distinguishes man from the other beasts: financial worries.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Money, Worry
If you are afraid of being lonely, don’t try to be right.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Solitude, Loneliness
On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Heaven
A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Suffering, Ideas
Socialism must come down from the brain and reach the heart.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Socialism, Communism
Fame is a constant effort
—Jules Renard
Topics: Fame
There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Bad Times, Anger, Fortune
Talent is a matter of quantity. Talent does not write on page, it writes three hundred.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Talent
Writing is the only way to talk without being interrupted.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Writing
A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Poetry, Poets
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Books, Writing, Literature
Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Words
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Jean Cocteau French Poet, Artist
Gustave Flaubert French Novelist
Jean Giono French Novelist
Guy de Maupassant French Short-story Writer
Victor Hugo French Novelist
Michel Houellebecq French Author
Andre Gide French Novelist
Anatole France French Novelist
Marcel Proust French Novelist
Remy de Gourmont French Poet