“The reason for depopulation? Presence of mind.”

Original: La cause de la dépopulation? La présence d'esprit. — A characteristic piece of compressed wit, turning an apparently serious question into a linguistic paradox. · Commerce (French)

• Humour
• Irony
• Wit

“The spirit, a man of spirit once told me, is merely stupidity in motion; and genius is stupidity in a frenzy.”

Original: L'esprit, me disait un homme d'esprit, ce n'est que la bêtise en mouvement; et le génie, c'est la bêtise en fureur. — A deliberately paradoxical attack on the flattering distinctions people make about intelligence and genius. · Tel quel (French)

• Genius
• Intelligence
• Irony

“One has never properly judged Romanticism. Who would have judged it? The critics.”

Original: On n’a jamais bien jugé le romantisme. Qui l’aurait jugé? les critiques!! — The sarcastic question attacks literary authority and the limitations of conventional critical judgement. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Criticism
• Irony
• Literature

“If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism.”

A wry redirection of modern explanation from desire to self · Letter, 10 January 1936

• Irony
• Psychology
• Self

“All fools invoke humanity, and all the weak invoke justice.”

Original: Tous les sots se réclament de l'humanité, et tous les faibles de la justice. — A deliberately severe aphorism about the way moral language can be used to disguise weakness or folly. · Monsieur Teste (French)

• Humanity
• Irony
• Justice

“When a poet paints his love for you in magnificent verse, doubt him. When he reveals it to you in prose, and bad prose at that, believe him.”

Original: Cuando un poeta te pinta en magníficos versos su amor, duda. Cuando te lo dé á conocer en prosa, y mala, cree. — With characteristic irony, Bécquer suggests that spontaneous prose may reveal genuine feeling more honestly than polished verse. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

• Irony
• Love
• Poetry

“By the way, a gendarme assured me this is not a prison.”

On the irony of official assurances · The Enormous Room

• Authority
• Experience
• Irony

“Every ironist aims at a pretentious reader in whom he sees himself reflected.”

Original: Tout ironiste vise un lecteur prétentieux où il se mire. — Irony is presented as a form of self-recognition as well as criticism. · Tel quel (French)

• Humour
• Irony
• Readers