("La Physiologie du Gout")

[fiefoe]

John Lanchester picked the right quote to pique me curiosity about Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin - "I have drawn the following inference, that the limits to pleasure are as yet neither known nor fixed."

Since the book is online, I just went cherry-picking among the chapters. Oh, to be French, and to be a contemporary of Sade!

• The first thing we become convinced of is that man is organized so as to be far more sensible of pain than of pleasure.
• I have, at least, discovered three movements unknown to animals, which I call SPICATION, ROTATION and VERRATION (from the Latin verb verro, I sweep). The first is when the tongue, like a PIKE, comes beyond the lips which repress it. The second is when the tongue rotates around all the space between the interior of the jaws and the palate. The third is when the tongue moves up and down and gathers the particles which remain in the half circular canal formed by the lips and gums. 
• The persons predestined to gourmandise are in general of medium stature. Their faces are either round or square, and small, their noses short and their chins rounded. The women are rather pretty than beautiful, and they have a slight tendency to obesity. ... Those, on the contrary, to whom nature has refused a desire for the gratifications of taste, have a long nose and face. Whatever be their statures, the face seems out of order. Their hair is dark and flat, and they have no embonpoint. They invented pantaloons.
• “Take a raisin—”  “No I thank you; I do not like wine in pills.”
• I could give my readers countless stories, but all is now over, and as my book is for all time, those who will read it now will know nothing of those for whom I write.
  

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Overheard in the locker room: "The more scantily-clad you are, the more right of way you have."