A Rebours (Against Nature) Joris Karl-Huysmans

This is a book I read, suggested by Michael Howard. Oscar Wilde quoted it being the strangest book he had ever read and it is that, but it is fantastic. Here are a few quotes that I loved from it:

"It can be stated without fear of contradiction that in his chosen province man has done as well as the god in whom he believes."

"Sophistical studies, super terrestrial semi theological speculations; fundamentally, they are ardent aspirations towards an ideal, towards and unknown universe, towards a distant beatitude, as utterly desirable as that promise by the scriptures"

Schophenhauer came nearer to the truth. He did not drum into your ears the dogma of original sin; he did not try to convince you of the superlative goodness of a god who protects the wicked, helps the foolish, crushes the young, brutalizes the old and chastises the innocent. "if a god has made this world, I should hate to be that god, for the misery of the world would break my heart"

His theory of pessimism was the great comforter of superior minds and lotty souls; it revealed society as it was, insisted on the innate stupidity of women, pointed out the pitfalls of life, saved you from disillusionment by teaching you to expect nothing at all if you were sufficiently strong willed, indeed to consider yourself lucky if you were not constantly by some unforeseen calamity

Accessible to rich in intellect, that made it all the more difficult of attainment for the poor, whose clamorous wrath was more easily appeased by the kindly voice of religion.

The loveliest melody in the world becomes unbearably vulgar once the public start humming it and the barrel organs playing it, so the work of art that appeals to charlatans, endears itself to fools. It becomes common place, almost repulsive