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A book is a bottle thrown into the sea on which this label should be attached: Catch as catch can.

— Alfred de Vigny Journal d'un poète (1867)

Un livre est une bouteille jetée en pleine mer sur laquelle il faut coller cette étiquette: attrape qui peut.

Original text (French)

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Books

More quotes by Alfred de Vigny

History is a novel whose author is the people.

Cinq-Mars; ou, une conjuration sous Louis XIII (1826)

Every man has seen the wall that limits his mind.

Clamour can be stifled, but how avenge oneself on silence?

Cinq-Mars; ou, une conjuration sous Louis XIII (1826)

In England the theatre has never been anything but a fashion for the upper classes or a debauch for the common people.

Journal d'un poète (1867)

The soldier's lot is the most melancholy relic of barbarism (next to capital punishment) that lingers on among mankind.

All Alfred de Vigny quotes →

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alfred de Vigny (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.