Idée Fixe Quotes

“The only man who is truly happy is a man who has an idée fixe. It takes up his every minute, fills any empty spaces in his thought, sneaks unexpected pleasures into his boredom, gives direction to his idle hours, again and again enlivens the stagnant waters of existence with a surging current.”
― Georges Rodenbach, The Bells of Bruges

“Oh the joy of an idée fixe! The contentment of a life taken up some ideal, any ideal! A gentle trap to catch the infinite, like the sun in a piece of mirror in a child's hand.”
― Georges Rodenbach, The Bells of Bruges

“Besides that, his secret - and principal - reason for retiring was to devote himself entirely to his idée fixe, his collection which was becoming ever larger and more complicated. Van Hulle's concern was no longer simply to have beautiful clocks or rare timepieces; his feelings for them were not simply those one has for inanimate objects. True, their outward appearance was still important, their craftsmanship, their mechanisms, heir value as works of art, but the fact that he had collected so many was for a different reason entirely. It was a result of his strange preoccupation with the exact time. It was no longer enough for him that they were interesting. He was irritated by the differences in time they showed. Above all when they struck the hours and the quarters. One, very old, was deranged and got confused in keeping count of the passage of time, which it had been doing for so long. Others were behind, little Empire clocks with children's voices almost, as if they had not quite grown up. In short, the clocks were always at variance. They seemed to be running after each other, calling out, getting lost, looking for each other at all the changing crossroads of time.”
― Georges Rodenbach, The Bells of Bruges

“God save you, dear reader, from an idée fixe, better a speck, a mote in the eye”
― Machado de Assis