Cédric

“Tout bonheur est un chef-d'oeuvre: la moindre erreur le fausse, la moindre hésitation l'altère, la moindre lourder le dépare, la moindre sottise l'abêtit.”
― Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

“But other hordes would come, and other false prophets. Our feeble efforts to ameliorate man’s lot would be but vaguely continued by our successors; the seeds of error and of ruin contained even in what is good would, on the contrary, increase to monstrous proportions in the course of centuries. A world wearied of us would seek other masters; what had seemed to us wise would be pointless for them, what we had found beautiful they would abominate. Like the initiate to Mithraism the human race has need, perhaps, of a periodical bloodbath and descent into the grave. I could see the return of barbaric codes, of implacable gods, of unquestioned despotism of savage chieftains, a world broken up into enemy states and eternally prey to insecurity. Other sentinels menaced by arrows would patrol the walls of future cities; the stupid, cruel, and obscene game would go on, and the human species in growing older would doubtless add new refinements of horror. Our epoch, the faults and limitations of which I knew better than anyone else would perhaps be considered one day, by contrast, as one of the golden ages of man.”
― Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

“Rien ne m'explique : mes vices et mes vertus n'y suffisent absolument pas ; mon bonheur le fait davantage.”
― Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

“But the women of Castiglione, seeing that I mad no distinction between nationalities, followed my example, showing the same kindness to these men whose origins were so different, and all of whom were foreigners to them. 'Tutti fratelli,' they repeated feelingly. All honour to these women, to these girls of Castiglione! Imperturbable, unwearying, unfaltering, their quiet self-sacrifice made little of fatigue and horrors, and of their own devotion.”
― Henry Dunant, A Memory of Solferino