New Proverbs
(On Old Themes)

Landru to punish coquettes,
When their love was too... cold
Used them like matches
And burned them without any fear:
Roasted be he who thinks badly of it.

A missionary taken, by cannibals,
Was still too thin to be devoured.
They force-fed him.
The apostle, with courage,
Before his plumpness, cried out, resigned:
Nothing is use dying, one must be a martyr at the right time.
[feed at the right time.]

A minister and some... donkey, were going to a certain field
One shouting a speech, that he was soon to make.
The other, vexed, no doubt, then began to bray,
And made such a racket that the "first" ran away:
He who brays last will bray well.

A "mother pig" rests tenderly
When a naughty rascal arrives on the farm
Who suddenly, snarling, while she is sleeping
Pulls her tail and ears to the point of breaking them.
Don't do to sows what you wouldn't want done to you

Gaston-Maxime GOUTÉ.

SMALL THOUGHTS... WILD!

Conscience: A sponge that the ambitious and the scoundrels know how to reduce to its smallest volume.

Life is a barrel that one rolls before oneself, without knowing what it contains: nectar or poison."

The years are precious stones that Youth scatters in its course, and that Old Age, tamed, piously collected.

The press is a gigantic lever, but so many dishonest people hold it, that this lever raises... only the disgust of the honest.

Like the tongue, woman is at once the best and the worst. She is capable of the most sublime devotion, as of the most ignominious baseness, according to whether she loves or hates.

O! little muse of simple hearts! O! my song, you, who have so often consoled me, why have you participated in the general madness?

Why have you glorified War?

The path of adolescence leads to a crossroads of roads, one of which leads to success; it is a question of choosing it.

Embarrassment or misery is not always to the shame of the worker but to that of the boss who employs him and enriches himself from the labor of others.

The Heart: A small red mill with an irregular ticking that commands the end of the vital dance.

The Eyes: Deep wells with waters changing color under the reflections of the soul.

Our Memories: Old books that we find and whose reading no longer has the exquisite flavor, or the excessive harshness of yesteryear.

Our Remorse: Hungry wolves that pursue us, relentlessly, biting our hearts.

Repopulate! ... What's the point, since out of ten discoveries or inventions, nine have no other goal than the more rapid destruction of the human race gas, engines, explosives.

As they used to say "in the past" about literature... honesty "today" leads to everything, on condition that you get out of it...

As soon as the sheet has covered the cold face of a deceased person, oblivion, indifference and wickedness are the first ready to accompany the corpse to the cemetery... and further,

Yes, I like clowns! because their gaiety amuses young and old and when we laugh we do not think of harming our neighbor.

Those whose private conduct is the antithesis of writings and poems, disgust me as much as the priests who blame others for doing what they themselves do.

Gaston-Maxime GOUTÉ.