Madame > Madame's Quotes

“Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“I would rather be a swineherd, understood by the swine, than a poet misunderstood by men.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“The majesty of nature depends upon the force of the human spirit.”
― John Ruskin, Modern Painters: Volume 2. Of the Imaginative and Theoretic Faculties

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.”
― John Ruskin, Modern Painters: Volume 3. Of Many Things

“L'orage rajeunit les fleurs”
― Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

“The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision.”
― Helen Keller

“Every ant  knows the  formula of its ant-hill,
every  bee knows  the formula  of its  beehive.
They know it  in their own way, not in our way.
Only humankind does not know its own formula.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“La beauté séduit la chair pour obtenir la permission de passer jusqu'à l'âme.”
― Simone Weil, La Pesanteur et la Grâce

“What Gosta,' he said to himself, 'can you no longer endure? You have been hardened in poverty all of your life; you have heard every tree in the forest, every tuft in the meadows preach to you of sacrifice and patience. You, brought up in a country where the winter is severe, and the summer joy is very short, have you forgotten the art of bearing your trials?
'Oh Gosta, a man must bear all that life gives him with a courageous heart and a smile on his lips, else he is no man. Sorrow as much as you will. If you love your beloved, let your conscience burn and chafe within you, but show yourself a man and a Varmlander. Let your glances beam with joy, and meet your friends with a gay word on your lips! Life and nature are hard. They bring forth courage and joy as a counterweight against their own hardness, or no one could endure them...”
― Selma Lagerlöf

“On peut chercher dans Dieu le complice et l'ami qui manquent toujours. Dieu est l'éternel confident dans cette tragédie dont chacun est le héros.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Intimate Journals

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“Tant que l'homme tolère d'avoir l'âme emplie de ses propres pensées, de ses pensées personnelles, il est entièrement soumis jusqu'au plus intime de ses pensées à la contrainte des besoins et au jeu mécanique de la force. S'il croit qu'il en est autrement, il est dans l'erreur. Mais tout change quand, par la vertu d'une véritable attention, il vide son âme pour y laisser pénétrer les pensées de la sagesse éternelle.”
― Simone Weil, L'enracinement

“A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small parcel.”
― John Ruskin

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“If some people see angels where others only see empty space, let them paint the angels; only let not anybody else think they can paint an angel too, on any calculated principles of the angelic.”
― John Ruskin, Modern Painters: Volume 4. Of Mountain Beauty

“On the secretly blushing cheek is reflected the glow of the heart”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every
generation may not come that far, but none comes further.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as compensation.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard

“Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for — life, good for all men, as for yourselves; if you can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace; — then, and so sanctifying wealth into 'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily labours, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to build, well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better; temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts; and that kind of marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal. ”
― John Ruskin, The Crown Of Wild Olive: Four Lectures On Industry And War

“No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, or happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than man could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being.”
― John Ruskin, Modern Painters: Volume 3. Of Many Things

“I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.”
― John Ruskin

“You will find it less easy to unroot faults than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults, still less of others faults; in every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; rejoice in it and as you can, try to imitate it; and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.”
― John Ruskin

“When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution

“Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also – if you love them enough.”
― George Washington Carver

“In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life.”
― Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace

“To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be.”
― George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outline of Aesthetic Theory

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
― Cicero