Plût au ciel que le lecteur, enhardi et devenu momentanément féroce comme ce qu’il lit, trouve, sans se désorienter, son chemin abrupt et sauvage, à travers les marécages désolés de ces pages sombres et pleines de poison ; car, à moins qu'il n’apporte dans sa lecture une logique rigoureuse et une tension d’esprit égale au moins à sa défiance, les émanations mortelles de ce livre imbiberont son âme comme l’eau le sucre. Il n’est pas bon que tout le monde lise les pages qui vont suivre ; quelques-uns seuls savoureront ce fruit amer sans danger. Par conséquent, âme timide, avant de pénétrer plus loin dans de pareilles landes inexplorées, dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant. Écoute bien ce que je te dis : dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Fiction Poetry Surrealism

To construct mechanically the brain of a somniferous tale, it is not enough to dissect nonsense & mightily stupefy the reader's intelligence with renowned doses, so as to paralyze his faculties for the rest of his life by the infallible law of fatigue; one must, besides, with good mesmeric fluid, make it somnambulistically impossible for him to move, against his nature forcing his eyes to cloud over at your own fixed stare.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Writers Writing Style

I find myself nursing keen regret at probably not being able to live long enough to explain properly to you what I do not myself pretend to know. But since it has been proved that by an extraordinary chance I have not yet lost my life since that far-off time when, filled with terror, I began the preceding sentence, I mentally calculate that it will not be useless here to construct the complete avowal of my basic impotence, especially when it is a matter (as at present) of this imposing & inaccessible question. It is, generally speaking, a singular thing that the attractive tendency which induces us to seek out (in order to then express them) the resemblances & differences concealed in the natural properties of the most conflicting objects, & on the surface sometimes the least apt to lend themselves to this kind of sympathetically curious combination, which -upon my word -gracefully add to the style of the writer, who for personal satisfaction requites himself with the impossible & unforgettable appearance of an owl grave until eternity.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Lucidity Writers

One should let one's nails grow for a fortnight. O, how sweet it is to drag brutally from his bed a child with no hair on his upper lip and with wide open eyes, make as if to touch his forehead gently with one's hand and run one's fingers through his beautiful hair. Then suddenly, when he is least expecting it, to dig one's long nails into his soft breast, making sure, though, that one does not kill him; for if he died, one would not later be able to contemplate his agonies. Then one drinks his blood as one licks his wounds; and during this time, which ought to last for eternity, the child weeps.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Horror Murder Sadism Torture

Oh incomprehensible pederasts, I shall not heap insults upon your great degradation; I shall not be the one to pour scorn on your infundibuliform anus. It is enough that the shameful and almost incurable maladies which besiege you should bring with them their unfailing punishments.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Horror Lautreamont Surrealism

Love of justice is for most men only the courage to suffer injustice.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Injustice Justice

The sciences have two extremities which meet. The first is the ignorance in which men find themselves at birth. The second is that attained by great souls. They have surveyed whatever man can know, find that they know all, meet in that same ignorance whence they started. It is a clever ignorance, which knows itself. Those among them who, having emerged from the first ignorance, have been unable to achieve the other & have some smattering of this self-satisfied knowledge, pose as experts. The latter do not disturb people, are no more mistaken in their judgments on everything than others. The masses, the skilled, make up the retinue of a nation. The others, who respect it, are equally respected by it.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Hubris Humility Intellectuals Science Scientists

I was a young, & had deep loves, & my heart would overflow with enthusiasm! And I mingled with the crowd, I mixed with my fellow men, speaking my thought out loud! And they gaped back at me, without understanding. And I withdrew from them, & they said to me: Arrogant one! And from time to time in my solitude, my loves, my repressed enthusiasms broke out into odes, conversation; & my companions laughed and used to point at me as a madman. So I suffered, doubted, cursed, & no one believed me sincere. It’s as if this heart, once so full of strength & love were annihilated.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Genius Lover Madman Outcast Pariah

The poet must be more useful than any other member if his tribe.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Duty Poetry Poets

When one wants to be famous, one has to dive gracefully into rivers of the blood of cannon-blasted bodies.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Blood Fame Gore Graceful Spectacle

We say sound things when we do not strive to say to say extraordinary ones.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Aphorism

Taste is the fundamental quality which sums up all the other qualities. It is the nec plus ultra of the intelligence. Through this alone is genius the supreme health and balance of all the faculties.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Health Alone Balance

The great universal family of men is a utopia worthy of the most mediocre logic.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Comte De Lautréamont Great Men Logic