“There is a diabolical streak in me, a troublesome and inexplicable perversity.”
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Octave Mirbeau
Octave Henri Marie Mirbeau was a French novelist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, journalist and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde with highly transgressive novels that explored violence, abuse and psychological detachment. His work has been translated into 30 languages.
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culture · French writer, art critic and journalist (1848–1917) · playwright · journalist · dramaturge · novelist · essayist · art critic · literary critic · anarchist · writer · prose writer · also Octave Mirbeau, Mirbeau, Octave Henri Marie Mirbeau
Born 16 February 1848 · Died 16 February 1917 · Q23441
26 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 9 entries
“Honesty is negative and sterile; it is ignorant of the correct evaluation of appetite and ambition – the only powers through which you can found anything durable.”
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“I feel something like a powerful oppression, like an immense fatigue after marching across fever-laden jungles, or by the shores of deadly lakes…And I am flooded by discouragement, so that it seems I shall never be able to escape from myself again.”
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“I had, at that moment, another soul – an almost divine soul, a creative and sacrificial soul.”
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“It isn’t dying that’s sad. It’s living when you’re not happy.”
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“Children, by nature, are keen, passionate and curious. What was referred to as laziness is often merely an awakening of sensitivity, a psychological inability to submit to certain absurd duties, and a natural result of the distorted, unbalanced education given to them. This laziness, which leads to an insuperable reluctance to learn, is, contrary to appearances, sometimes proof of intellectual superiority and a condemnation of the teacher.”
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“Desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual ideal of hell and its horror.”
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“Every intellectual effort is bent towards committing the most diversified violations upon the human being.”
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“Each footstep taken in this society bristles with privileges, and is marked with a bloodstain; each turn of the government machinery grinds the tumbling, gasping flesh of the poor; and tears are running from everywhere in the impenetrable night of suffering. Facing these endless murders and continuous tortures, what's the meaning of society, this crumbling wall, this collapsing staircase?”
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2025· 1 entry
The New York Times: OCTAVE MIRBEAU.; The Author of the Recent Parisian Triumph, "Business Is Business."
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2024· 1 entry
L'Humanité: octave mirbeau
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2023· 1 entry
JSTOR Daily: Octave Mirbeau: Two Plays: "Business is Business" and "Charity"
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2020· 3 entries
Le Figaro: Quand Octave Mirbeau écrivait dans Le Figaro: «Plus l’art s’abaisse, plus le comédien monte»
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rts: Octave Mirbeau, la satire salutaire d'un écrivain audacieux
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Fabula: Octave Mirbeau. Études et actualités, n° 1
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2019· 1 entry
lamontagne.fr: Lionel Jamon a donné corps aux écrits d’Octave Mirbeau à la Pléiade
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2017· 3 entries
Fabula: Octave Mirbeau et les Etats-Unis
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Mediapart: Octave Mirbeau, l’écrivain qui démentait comme un arracheur de masques
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Le Figaro: Octave Mirbeau au Figaro en 1882: «Le comédien est un être inférieur»
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1917· 3 entries
Died 1917-02-16.
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“Original: «While I was an honorable man in her eyes, she did not love me. But the minute she understood what I was, when she breathed the true and foul odor of my soul, love was born in her – for she does love me! Well, well! There is nothing real, then, except evil.”
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“Original: «Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call monsters are superior forms, or forms beyond your understanding. Aren't the gods monsters? Isn't a man of genius a monster, like a tiger or a spider, like all individuals who live beyond social lies, in the dazzling and divine immortality of things? Why, I too then-am a monster!”
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1908· 1 entry
— at the end of a long legal and media battle
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1888· 1 entry
Mirbeau published L'Abbé Jules (Abbé Jules), the first pre-Freudian novel written under the influence of Dostoevsky to appear in French literature; the text featured two main characters: l'abbé Jules and Father Pamphile
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1848· 2 entries
Born 1848-02-16.
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“During Humankind’s long centuries societies have risen and fallen, all alike in this one fact which rules all history: the great are protected, the small are crushed.”
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