Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.
An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
He had the confidence of a man who had never been wounded.
Death does not concern me. He who takes his first step uses perhaps his last shoes. (Halmalo)
What makes night within us may leave stars.
Un désespoir calme, froid, sinistre.
Gauvain reprit : - Et la femme ? qu'en faites-vous ? Cimourdain répondit : - Ce qu'elle est. La servante de l'homme. - Oui. A une condition. - Laquelle ? - C'est que l'homme sera le serviteur de la femme. - Y penses-tu ? s'écria Cimourdain, l'homme...
History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary ma...
There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling. Every summit seems an exaggerati...
It is difficult to frighten those who are easily astonished; ignorance causes fearlessness. Children have so little claim on hell, that if they should see it they would admire it.
To know how to distinguish the agitation arising from covetousness, from the agitation arising from principles, to fight the one and aid the other, in this lies the genius and the power of great revolutionary leaders.
Quel champ de bataille que l'homme ! Nous sommes livrés à ces dieux, à ces monstres, à ces géants, nos pensées.
Nature is pitiless; she never withdraws her flowers, her music, her fragrance and her sunlight, from before human cruelty or suffering. She overwhelms man by the contrast between divine beauty and social hideousness. She spares him nothing of her lov...
Wonderful nature has a double meaning, which dazzles great minds and blinds uncultivated souls. When man is ignorant, when the desert is filled with visions, the darkness of solitude is added to the darkness of intelligence; hence, in man, the possib...
Wide horizons lead the soul to broad ideas; circumscribed horizons engender narrow ideas; this sometimes condemns great hearts to become small minded. Broad ideas hated by narrow ideas,—this is the very struggle of progress.
Revolution is the accession of the peoples, and, at the bottom, the People is Man.
Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.
