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?

Alfred de Vigny

Categorized in : Father Two Mother

Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example... by Alfred de Vigny

Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?

Alfred de Vigny

example evil memories

Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and... by Alfred de Vigny

Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?

Alfred de Vigny

imitation use art

On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history wa... by Alfred de Vigny

On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.

Alfred de Vigny

born stories men

Fainthearted animals move about in herds. The lion walks alone in the desert. Let the poet always walk thus.

Alfred de Vigny

desert animal moving

Only silence is great; all else is weakness. by Alfred de Vigny

Only silence is great; all else is weakness.

Alfred de Vigny

silence-is weakness silence

History is a novel for which the people is the author. by Alfred de Vigny

History is a novel for which the people is the author.

Alfred de Vigny

novel history 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 sounds

Alfred de Vigny

paper sound firsts

Greatness is the dream of youth realized in old age. by Alfred de Vigny

Greatness is the dream of youth realized in old age.

Alfred de Vigny

greatness age dream

I love the majesty of human suffering. by Alfred de Vigny

I love the majesty of human suffering.

Alfred de Vigny

human-suffering majesty suffering

What is a great life? It is the dreams of youth realised in old a... by Alfred de Vigny

What is a great life? It is the dreams of youth realised in old age.

Alfred de Vigny

age dream life

A calm despair, without angry convulsions or reproaches directed at heaven, is the essence of wisdom.

Alfred de Vigny

despair essence heaven

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?

Alfred de Vigny

judging feelings giving

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 fame

Alfred de Vigny

idiot together men

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.

Alfred de Vigny

phrases matter heart

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its... by Alfred de Vigny

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.

Alfred de Vigny

ideals relation art

Invisible is real. Souls have their own world. by Alfred de Vigny

Invisible is real. Souls have their own world.

Alfred de Vigny

real soul world

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.

Alfred de Vigny

silence heart long

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?

Alfred de Vigny

garden air country

Perform your long and heavy task with energy, treading the path to which Fate has been pleased to call you.

Alfred de Vigny

fate energy long

What is a great life but a youthful intention carried out in matu... by Alfred de Vigny

What is a great life but a youthful intention carried out in maturity?

Alfred de Vigny

intention maturity