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Magical shadow with symbolic powers!
A voice from the distant past, an evocation,
Is it not mine prepared for incantation?

— Stéphane Mallarmé Hérodiade (1898)

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Power

More quotes by Stéphane Mallarmé

The flesh is sorrowful, alas! And I've read all the books.

It is in front of the paper that the artist creates himself.

If only I'd chosen an easy work!

The work of pure poetry implies the elocutionary disappearance of the poet, who yields the initiative to words.

The poetic act consists in suddenly seeing that an idea splits into a number of motives of equal value and in grouping them; they rhyme.

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

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There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

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When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Attribution

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