22 quotes
To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.
Graziella (1852)
Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.
Méditations Poétiques (1820)
What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song whose first solemn note is sounded by death?
Méditations Poétiques (1820)
There is a woman at the beginning of all great things.
Utopias are often only premature truths.
Histoire des Girondins (1847)
Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.
Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.
Premieres Meditations Poetiques (1820)
Experience is the only prophecy of wise men.
Speech at Mâcon (1847)
I say to this night: "Pass more slowly"; and the dawn will come to dispel the night.
The Lake (1820)
Let us love the passing hour, let us hurry up and enjoy our time.
The Lake (1820)
The more I see the representatives of the people, the more I love my dogs.
a letter from Comte Alfred d'Orsay to John Forster (1850)
If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad?
Histoire de la Turquie (1854)
Silence is the winding-sheet of the past: it is sometimes impious, often dangerous to raise it. But even when it is raised piously and lovingly, the first moment is a cruel one.
Les confidences (1849)
Love alone was left, as a great image of a dream that was erased.
The Valley (1820)
The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.
O time, arrest your flight! and you, propitious hours, arrest your course! Let us savor the fleeting delights of our most beautiful days!
The Lake (1820)
The very eagle, destined to soar so high and to see so far, begins his life in the fissures of the rocks, and in his early days only sees the arid and sometimes fetid borders of his eyry.
Les confidences (1849)
Si la grandeur du dessein, la petitesse des moyens, l'immensité du résultat sont les trois mesures du génie de l'homme, qui osera comparer humainement un grand homme de l'histoire moderne à Mahomet?
Our family is evidently our second self, more than self, existing before self, and surviving self with the better part of self. It is the image of the holy and loving unity of beings revealed by the small group of creatures who hold to one another, and made visible by feeling!
Les confidences (1849)
I was singing as a bird mourns.