“Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.”
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Journey to the End of the Night (1932)
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Louis-ferdinand Céline 88
French writer 1894–1961Related quotes

“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments”
No. 163 (8 October 1751)
The Rambler (1750–1752)
Context: Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony.

Original: (fr) XXXIII. Les délits des mandataires du peuple doivent être sévèrement et facilement punis. Nul n'a le droit de se prétendre plus inviolable que les autres citoyens.
Source: "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, proposed by Maximilien Robespierre" (24 April, 1793)
In Search of the Miraculous (1949)

“Every period in history has it's own punishments, and ours has a multitude.”
The Following Story (1991)

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943), Statement Of Obligations
Context: Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just. This reintegration with the good is what punishment is. Every man who is innocent, or who has finally expiated guilt, needs to be recognized as honourable to the same extent as anyone else.

“Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.”
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
Variant: All would live long, but none would be old.
Source: Gulliver's Travels

“I am a poor man from a poor country, so I have to be entertaining every second.”
Attributed in: Yuji Takahashi " For Paik http://www.suigyu.com/yuji/en-text/paik.html," exhibition catalogue “ Bye-bye Nam June Paik http://www.watarium.co.jp/exhibition/0606_paik_en.html” at Watarium Museum, 2006.
1970s