Woman possesses the cosmic force of an element, an invincible force of destruction, like nature's. She is, in herself alone, all nature! Being the matrix of life, she is by that very fact the matrix of death - since it is from death that life is perpetually reborn, and since to annihilate death would be to kill life at its only fertile source.
Octave MirbeauThe universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-gardenโฆPassions, greed, hatred, and lies; social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering.
Octave MirbeauโThe greatest danger of a terrorist's bomb is in the explosion of stupidity that it provokes.
Octave MirbeauCome now, don't make such a funeral face. It isn't dying that's sad; it's living when you're not happy.
Octave Mirbeau