Henri Barbusse quotes - page 8

The child would grow up, a saviour, to give life to everything again. Starting at the dark bottom he would ascend the ladder and begin life over again, life, the only paradise there is, the bouquet of nature. He would make beauty beautiful. He would make eternity over again with his voice and his song. And clasping the new-born infant close, she looked at all the sunlight she had given the world. (Henri Barbusse)
Who shall compose the Bible of human desire, the terrible and simple Bible of that which drives us from life to life, the Bible of our doings, our goings, our original fall? View quote
Henri Barbusse
She, perhaps, was the one I should have always loved; she whom I seek gropingly, desperately, from each to the next. View quote
Henri Barbusse
Already there is uneasy hesitation in these castaways' discussion of their tragedy, in the huge masterpiece of destiny that they are roughly sketching. View quote
Henri Barbusse
Sometimes I myself have been sublime, I myself have been a masterpiece. Sometimes my visions have been mingled with a thrill of evidence so strong and so creative that the whole room has quivered with it like a forest, and there have been moments, in truth, when the silence cried out. View quote
Henri Barbusse
I shall not be able to listen any more, or look into the room, or hear anything distinctly. And I, who have not cried since my childhood, I cry now like a child because of all that I shall never have. I cry over lost beauty and grandeur. I love everything that I should have embraced. View quote
Henri Barbusse
Will the great poet come who shall settle the boundaries of belief and render it eternal, the poet who will be, not a fool, not an ignorant orator, but a wise man, the great inexorable poet? View quote
Henri Barbusse
I tell them that fraternity is a dream, an obscure and uncertain sentiment; that while it is unnatural for a man to hate one whom he does not know, it is equally unnatural to love him. View quote
Henri Barbusse
The eye is lost in all directions among the desolation where the multitude of men and women are hiding, as always and as everywhere. View quote
Henri Barbusse
In life's tragedy, separation is the only thing one sees. View quote
Henri Barbusse
Our heart is not made for the abstract formula of happiness, since the truth of things is not made for it either. It beats for emotion and not for peace. Such is the gravity of the truth. (Henri Barbusse)
All is madness. And there is no one who will dare to rise and say that all is not madness, and that the future does not so appear - as fatal and unchangeable as a memory. View quote
Henri Barbusse
Ah, there are cloudy moments when one asks himself if men do not deserve all the disasters into which they rush! No - I recover myself - they do not deserve them. But we, instead of saying "I wish" must say "I will." View quote
Henri Barbusse
It is not enough to speak; you must know words. View quote
Henri Barbusse
I thought of all those wise men, poets, artists before me who had suffered, wept, and smiled on the road to truth. View quote
Henri Barbusse
Turn where you will, everywhere, the man and the woman ever confronting each other, the man who loves a hundred times, the woman who has the power to love so much and to forget so much. View quote
Henri Barbusse
I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory. View quote
Henri Barbusse
War kills wealth as it does men; it goes away in ruins and smoke, and one cannot fabricate gold any more than soldiers. View quote
Henri Barbusse
The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of arguments. One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings. View quote
Henri Barbusse
I think of myself, of all that I am. Myself, my home, my hours; the past, and the future, - it was going to be like the past! View quote
Henri Barbusse
I have heard the annunciation of whatever finer things are to come. Through me has passed, without staying me in my course, the Word which does not lie, and which, said over again, will satisfy. (Henri Barbusse)
The so-called inseparable cohesions of national interests vanish away as soon as you draw near to examine them. There are individual interests and a general interest, those two only. View quote
Henri Barbusse
What am I? I am the desire not to die. View quote
Henri Barbusse
Between two masses of gloomy cloud a tranquil gleam emerges; and that line of light, so blackedged and beset, brings even so its proof that the sun is there. View quote
Henri Barbusse
Two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There are perfect couples, no doubt - perfection always exists somewhere - but I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know! View quote
Henri Barbusse