Quotes by : Joris-Karl Huysmans

To love at a distance and without hope; never to possess; to dream chastely of pale charms and impossible....

Ah; but my courage fails me, and my heart is sick within me! —Lord, take pity on the Christian who....

Every one has a sum of physical and moral suffering to pay, and whoever does not settle it here below,....

The only people who are worth knowing are either saints, scoundrels or madmen; at least their conversation....

The heart, said to be man’s noblest organ, has the same shape as the penis, commonly supposed the most....

Worshiping the Devil is no more insane than worshiping God...It is precisely at the moment when positivism....

Goya’s savage verve, his harsh, brutal genius, captivated Des Esseintes. On the other hand, the universal....

Far from seeking to justify, as does the Church, the necessity of torments and afflictions, he cried,....

How inferior the human machine is, compared to man-made machines. They can be decoked, unscrewed, oiled....

Art and prayer are the only decent ejaculations of the soul.