Alfred de Vigny
But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity.Collection: Poetry
Do you know that charming part of our country which has been called the garden of France - that spot where, amid verdant plains watered by wide streams, one inhales the purest air of heaven?Collection: Gardening
Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.Collection: Beauty
Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?Collection: Art
On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.Collection: History
We shall find in our troubled hearts, where discord reigns, two needs which seem at variance, but which merge, as I think, in a common source - the love of the true, and the love of the fabulous.
No writer, no matter how gifted, immortalizes himself unless he has crystallized into expressive and original phrase the eternal sentiments and yearnings of the human heart.
Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?
From this, without doubt, sprang the fable. Man created it thus, because it was not given him to see more than himself and nature, which surrounds him; but he created it true with a truth all its own.
Do you not see with your own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction?
France, for example, loves at the same time history and the drama, because the one explores the vast destinies of humanity, and the other the individual lot of man.
I think, then, that man, after having satisfied his first longing for facts, wanted something fuller - some grouping, some adaptation to his capacity and experience, of the links of this vast chain of events which his sight could not take in.
Just as we descend into our consciences to judge of actions which our minds can not weigh, can we not also search in ourselves for the feeling which gives birth to forms of thought, always vague and cloudy?
Of late years (perhaps as a result of our political changes) art has borrowed from history more than ever.
One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact.
The acts of the human race on the world's stage have doubtless a coherent unity, but the meaning of the vast tragedy enacted will be visible only to the eye of God, until the end, which will reveal it perhaps to the last man.
The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.
The study of social progress is today not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart.
We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements.
What is the use of theorizing as to wherein lies the charm that moves us?
What it values most of all is the sum total of events and the advance of civilization, which carries individuals along with it; but, indifferent to details, it cares less to have them real than noble or, rather, grand and complete.
Invisible is real. Souls have their own world.Collection: Real
Only silence is great; all else is weakness.Collection: Silence
Greatness is the dream of youth realized in old age.Collection: Dream
Fainthearted animals move about in herds. The lion walks alone in the desert. Let the poet always walk thus.Collection: Moving
History is a novel for which the people is the author.Collection: People
The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few soundsCollection: Paper
I love the majesty of human suffering.Collection: Suffering
What is a great life? It is the dreams of youth realised in old age.Collection: Life
Perform your long and heavy task with energy, treading the path to which Fate has been pleased to call you.Collection: Fate
Poetry is the disease of the brain.Collection: Brain
Every man has seen the wall that limits his mind.Collection: Art
The events I sought were never as great as I needed them to be.Collection: Events
A calm despair, without angry convulsions or reproaches directed at heaven, is the essence of wisdom.Collection: Essence
The true God, the mighty God, is the God of ideas.Collection: Funny
What is a great life but a youthful intention carried out in maturity?Collection: Maturity
The existence of the soldier, next to capital punishment, is the most grievous vestige of barbarism which survives among men.Collection: War
Silence alone is great; all else is feebleness . . . Perform with all your heart your long and heavy task. . . . Then as do I, say naught, but suffer and die.Collection: Heart
To hold power has always meant to manipulate idiots and circumstances; and those circumstances and those idiots, tossed together, bring about those coincidences to which even the greatest men confess they owe most of their fameCollection: Men
The loveliest Muse in the world does not feed her owner; these girls make fine mistresses but terrible wivesCollection: Girl
Doubt is the freedom of thought. Any claim to truth can be doubted.Collection: Truth
I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidanceCollection: Stupid
What is a great life if not a youthful idea executed by a man of mature years.Collection: Men
Hope is the biggest of our foolish things.Collection: Foolish
Oh, I have a habit of letting myself be lectured on the things I know best. I like to see if they are understood in the same way I understand; for there are many ways of knowing the same thingCollection: Knowing
Hope is the greatest madness. What can we expect of a world that we enter with the assurance of seeing our fathers and mothers die? A world where, if two beings love each other and give their lives to each other, both can be sure that one will watch the other perish?Collection: Mother
The study of social progress is to-day not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart.Collection: Heart
I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these wordsCollection: Children
An army is a nation within a nation, it is one of the vices of courage.Collection: Army