Quotes by Marguerite Yourcenar

About Marguerite Yourcenar:

Marguerite Yourcenar was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist. Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie française, in 1980, and the seventeenth person to occupy Seat 3.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Ce matin, l'idée m'est venue pour la première fois que mon corps, ce fidèle compagnon, cet ami plus sûr, mieux connu de moi que mon âme, n'est qu'un monstre sournois qui finira par dévorer son maître.

Marguerite Yourcenar

It is not by blood, anyhow, that man's true continuity is established: Alexander's direct heir is Caesar, and not the frail infant born of a Persian princess in an Asiatic citadel; Epaminondas, dying without issue, was right to boast that he had Vict...

Marguerite Yourcenar

The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself; my first homelands have been books, and to a lesser degree schools.

Marguerite Yourcenar

Chabrias, ever preoccupied to offer the gods the worship due them, was disturbed by the progress of sects of this kind among the populace of large cities; he feared for the welfare of our ancient religions, which yoke men to no dogma whatsoever, but ...

Marguerite Yourcenar

La vie est atroce ; nous savons cela. Mais précisément parce que j’attends peu de choses de la condition humaine, les périodes de bonheur, les progrès partiels, les efforts de recommencement, et de continuité me semblent autant de prodiges qui...

Marguerite Yourcenar

Tout bonheur est un chef-d'oeuvre: la moindre erreur le fausse, la moindre hésitation l'altère, la moindre lourder le dépare, la moindre sottise l'abêtit.

Marguerite Yourcenar

Comme tout le monde, je n'ai à mon service que trois moyens d'évaluer l'existence humaine: l'étude de soi, la plus difficile et la plus dangereuse, mais aussi la plus féconde des méthodes; l'observation des hommes, qui s'arrangent le plus souven...

Marguerite Yourcenar

Et j'avoue que la raison reste confondue en présence du prodige même de l'amour, de l'étrange obsession qui fait que cette même chair dont nous nous soucions si peu quand elle compose notre propre corps, nous inquiétant seulement de la laver, de...

Marguerite Yourcenar

I lent only half an ear to those well-intentioned folk who say that happiness is enervating, liberty too relaxing, and that kindness is a corruption for those upon whom it is practiced. That may be; but in the world as it is, such reasoning amounts t...

Marguerite Yourcenar

Any law too often subject to infraction is bad; it is the duty of the legislator to repeal or to change it, lest the contempt into which that rash ruling has fallen should extend to other, more just legislation.

Marguerite Yourcenar

Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when the presume to anticipate custom.

Marguerite Yourcenar

I was glad that our venerable, almost formless religions, drained of all intransigence and purged of savage rites, linked us mysteriously to the most ancient secrets of man and of earth, not forbidding us, however, a secular explanation of facts and ...

Marguerite Yourcenar

We lose track of everything, and of everyone, even ourselves. The facts of my father's life are less known to me than those of the life of Hadrian. My own existence, if I had to write of it, would be reconstructed by me from externals, laboriously, a...

Marguerite Yourcenar

Il segreto più profondo di Olimpia è racchiuso in quest'unica nota cristallina: lottare è un gioco, vivere è un gioco, morire è un gioco; profitti e perdite non sono che distinzioni passeggere, ma il gioco pretende tutte le nostre forze, e la so...

Marguerite Yourcenar

Cette encombrante enveloppe qu'il lui fallait laver, remplir, réchauffer au coin du feu ou sous la toison d'une bête morte, coucher le soir comme un enfant ou comme un vieillard imbécile, servait contre lui d'otage à la nature entière et, pis en...

Marguerite Yourcenar

Dans ce monde fort confus, il y a quelques prescriptions assez claires, dit le philosophe. J'ai pour métier de soigner.

Marguerite Yourcenar

Le souvenir n'est qu'un regard posé de temps en temps sur des êtres devenus intérieurs,mais qui ne dépendent pas de la mémoire pour continuer d'exister.

Marguerite Yourcenar

On n'est bien que libre, et cacher ses opinions est encore plus gênant que de couvrir sa peau. (La conversation à Innsbruck)

Marguerite Yourcenar

Il se servait de son esprit comme d'un coin pour élargir de son mieux les interstices du mur qui de toute part nous confine. Les failles grandissaient, ou plutôt le mur, semblait-il, perdait de lui-même sa solidité sans pour autant cesser d'être...

Marguerite Yourcenar

Every invalid is a prisoner.

Marguerite Yourcenar

Author Bio

  • NameMarguerite Yourcenar
  • Descriptionwriter
  • BornJune 8, 1903
  • DiedDecember 17, 1987
  • CountryFrance; United States Of America; Belgium
  • ProfessionWriter; Translator; Poet; Novelist; Essayist
  • WorksMemoirs Of Hadrian; The Abyss
  • AwardsCommander Of The Legion Of Honour; Prix Femina; Erasmus Prize; Prince Pierre Foundation