Alfred de Vigny quotes

Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil? (Alfred de Vigny)
On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life? View quote
Alfred de Vigny
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? View quote
Alfred de Vigny
A calm despair, without angry convulsions or reproaches directed at heaven, is the essence of wisdom. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
Every man has seen the wall that limits his mind. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
I think, then, that man, after having satisfied his first longing for facts, wanted something fuller - some grouping, some adaptation to his capacity and experience, of the links of this vast chain of events which his sight could not take in. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
We shall find in our troubled hearts, where discord reigns, two needs which seem at variance, but which merge, as I think, in a common source - the love of the true, and the love of the fabulous. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
The loveliest Muse in the world does not feed her owner; these girls make fine mistresses but terrible wives. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
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)
Do you not see with your own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction? View quote
Alfred de Vigny
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? View quote
Alfred de Vigny
Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
France, for example, loves at the same time history and the drama, because the one explores the vast destinies of humanity, and the other the individual lot of man. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
What it values most of all is the sum total of events and the advance of civilization, which carries individuals along with it; but, indifferent to details, it cares less to have them real than noble or, rather, grand and complete. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
What is the use of theorizing as to wherein lies the charm that moves us? View quote
Alfred de Vigny
Of late years (perhaps as a result of our political changes) art has borrowed from history more than ever. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
An army is a nation within a nation, it is one of the vices of courage. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements. (Alfred de Vigny)
The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
From this, without doubt, sprang the fable. Man created it thus, because it was not given him to see more than himself and nature, which surrounds him; but he created it true with a truth all its own. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact. View quote
Alfred de Vigny
Actors are lucky, they have glory without responsibility. View quote
Alfred de Vigny