Alphonse de Lamartine
It is in the habits of lawyers that every accusation appears insufficient if they do not exaggerate it even to calumny; it is thus that justice itself loses its sanctity and its respect amongst men.Collection: Men
Private passions grow tired and wear themselves out; political passions, never.Collection: Passion
France is revolutionary or she is nothing at all. The revolution of1789 is her political religion.Collection: Political
But Nature too, shakes off her sleep today; By May's mild sun we see reviv'd her frame, Around my window Venus' birds proclaim, The month most cherish'd backwards bends his way!Collection: Sleep
Soul of the universe, Sire, God, Creator, Lord, I believe in Thee, 'neath all these names: And without having need to hear thy word, In the sky's brow my glorious creed I trace.Collection: God
History is neither more nor less than biography on a large scale.Collection: History
Silence,--the applause of real and durable impressions.Collection: Real
Sentiment is the poetry of the imagination.Collection: Imagination
And when night, guiding her bright train of stars, Throws o'er the sleeping world her gloomy veil, Lonely amidst the desert and the darkness, Musing upon the night's calm majesty; Wrapt up in quietness, with shade and silence, My soul more closely worshippeth Thy presence; With an internal day I feel enlighten'd, And hear a voice, which biddeth me to hope.Collection: Lonely
Love of country produces among men such examples as Cincinnatus, Alfred, Washington--pure, unselfish, symmetrical; among women, Vittoria Colonna, Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, Jeanne Darc--romantic, devoted, marvelous.Collection: Country
Shall not this bygone Eden that we knew In our Eternal Life have shape and hue? For where Time is not shall not all Time be? In that calm breast whereto our souls are cleaving Shall we not find our loved ones beyond grieving About the hearth-stone of Eternity?Collection: Heart
Enthusiasm springs from the imagination, and self-sacrifice from the heart. Women are, therefore, more naturally heroic than men. All nations have in their annals some of these miracles of patriotism, of which woman is the instrument in the hands of God.Collection: Spring
Too much I've seen, and felt, and lov'd in life, Living I come to seek Lethaean calm; Let me, fair scenes! forget all worldly strife, Oblivion solely is my bosom's balm.Collection: Too Much
The photographer will never replace the painter; one is a man, the other a machine. Let us compare them no longer. (1848)Collection: Men
The loss of a mother is always keenly felt, even if her health be such as to incapacitate her from taking an active part in the care of the family. She is the sweet rallying-point for affection, obedience, and a thousand tendernesses. Dreary the blank when she is withdrawn!Collection: Mother
God - but a word invoked to explain the world.Collection: World
Eternity is so certain and so terrible that a thousand lives would not suffice to prepare for it.Collection: Eternity
Thou makest the man, O Sorrow!--yes, the whole man,--as the crucible gold.Collection: Men
He, who can create, abhors destruction.Collection: Destruction
Sad is his lot, who, once at least in his life, has not been a poet.Collection: Poetry
...to kill animals for the purpose of feeding on their flesh is one of the most deplorable and shameful infirmities of the human stateCollection: Animal
I say to this night: "Pass more slowly"; and the dawn will come to dispel the night.Collection: Night
Chance often gives us that which we should not have presumed to ask.Collection: Giving
Poetry is the morning dream of great minds.Collection: Dream
An artist should have more than two eyes.Collection: Art
The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge, who sees, listens, and decides.Collection: Mirrors
Men are misers, and women prodigal, in affection.Collection: Women
Treason, which begins by being cautious, ends by betraying itself.Collection: Ends
At twenty every one is republican.Collection: Twenties
It is because of the servility of photography that I am fundamentally contemptuous of this chance invention which will never be an art but which plagiarizes nature by means of optics. (1848)Collection: Photography
Before this century shall run out, journalism will be the whole press. Mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. Thought will spread abroad with the rapidity of light--instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood at the extremities of the earth.Collection: Running
Hence life, as through a cloud, for me I see Vanish, and to the past's dark shade 'tis chas'd; As a grand image love remains to me-- Sole remnant of a dream, by morn effac'd.Collection: Dream
The People will not allow themselves to be changed into hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignation against their transformers. A day will come when they will see that they are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, when they are robbed of their souls and of God, both their titles to liberty are stolen from them.Collection: People
Man, man, is thy brother, and thy father is God.Collection: Brother
After his blood, that which a man can next give out of himself is a tear.Collection: Men
What mortal is there, over whose first joys and happiness does not break some storm, dispelling with its icy breath his fanciful illusions, and shattering his altar?Collection: Happiness
Exquisite beauty resides rather in the female form than face, where it is also more lasting.Collection: Beauty
True greatness is sovereign wisdom. We are never deceived by our virtues.Collection: Greatness
We are earth's children, and life is the same in sap as in blood; all that the earth, our mother, feels and expresses to the eye by her form and aspect, in melancholy or in splendor, finds an echo within us.Collection: Mother
Virginity is the poetry, not the reality, of life.Collection: Reality
Philosophy is the rational expression of genius.Collection: Philosophy
It is for truth that God created genius.Collection: Genius
Yet, in these autumn days when Nature expires, Here, in these veiled scenes, I find more attractions; It is a friend's sad goodbye; it is the last smile From lips that death is going to close forever!Collection: Goodbye
Newspapers will ultimately engross all literature.Collection: Literature
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. I am the fellow citizen of every being that thinks; my country is Truth.Collection: Country
I am persuaded that if the brutes even--if the dog, the horse, the ox, the elephant, the bird, could speak, they would confess, that, at the bottom of their nature, their instincts, their sensations, their obtuse intelligence, assisted by organs less perfect than ours, there is a clouded, secret sentiment of this existence of a superior and primordial Being, from whom all emanates, and to whom all returns.Collection: Dog
Photography is better than art. It is a solar phenomenon in which the artist collaborates with the sun.Collection: Photography
Esteem incites friendship, but not love; the former is the twin brother of Reverence; the latter is the child of Equality.Collection: Brother
Man is born barbarous--he is ransomed from the condition of beasts only by being cultivated.Collection: Men