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The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.

— Maurice Maeterlinck Wisdom and Destiny (1898)

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More quotes by Maurice Maeterlinck

I know that you are looking for the Blue Bird, that is to say, the great secret of things and of happiness, so that Man may make our servitude still harder.

The Blue Bird (1908)

An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.

The New Dictionary of Thoughts: A Cyclopedia of Quotations (1960)

It is the evil that lies in ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that lies in others.

Wisdom and Destiny (1898)

Men's weaknesses are often necessary to the purposes of life.

The future is a world limited by ourselves; in it we discover only what concerns us and, sometimes, by chance, what interests those whom we love the most.

All Maurice Maeterlinck quotes →

Attribution

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