Marguerite Yourcenar quotes - page 2

He had reached that moment in life, different for each one of us, when a man abandonds himself to his demon or to his genius, following a mysterious law which bids him either to destroy or outdo himself. (Marguerite Yourcenar)
Leaving behind books is even more beautiful - there are far too many children. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
There are books which one should not attempt before having passed the age of forty. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
The unfortunate thing is that, because wishes sometimes come true, the agony of hoping is perpetuated. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
One must not fear the words anymore when one consented to the things. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
At this period of his existence, meat and blood, entrails, and all that had ever lived and breathed disgusted him as food, for an animal dies in pain just as man does, and it repelled him to be digesting death's agony. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
To have merit to abstain from a fault, is a manner to be guilty. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
We believe ourselves pure as long as we despise what we do not desire. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
Any law too often subject to infraction is bad; it is the duty of the legislator to repeal or change it. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
Every bliss achieved is a masterpiece: the slightest error turns it awry, and it alters with one touch of doubt; any heaviness detracts from its charm, the least stupidity renders it dull. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
The memory of most men is an abandoned cemetery where lie, unsung and unhonored, the dead whom they have ceased to cherish. (Marguerite Yourcenar)
Few bipeds, from Adam's time down, have been worthy of the name of man. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
Doubtless it signified one or the other meaning alternately, or perhaps both at the same time. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
Every silence is composed of nothing but unspoken words. Perhaps that is why I became a musician. Someone had to express this silence, make it render up all the sadness it contained, make it sing as it were. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
In alchemical treatises, the formula L'Oeuvre au Noir ... designates what is said to be the most difficult phase of the alchemist's process, the separation and dissolution of substance. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
Beyond this village, other villages; beyond this abbey, other abbeys; and after the fortress, more fortresses still. And each of these castles of stone and each wooden hut has its structure of fixed ideas or flimsy, ill-based opinions superposed above it within which fools stay immured, but the wise find apertures for escape. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
In alchemical treatises, the formula L'Oeuvre au Noir ... designates what is said to be the most difficult phase of the alchemist's process, the separation and dissolution of substance. It is still not clear whether the term applied to daring experiments on matter itself, or whether it was understood to symbolize trials of the mind in discarding all forms of routine and prejudice. Doubtless it signified one or the other meaning alternately, or perhaps both at the same time. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar
Every silence is composed of nothing but unspoken words. Perhaps that is why I became a musician. Someone had to express this silence, make it render up all the sadness it contained, make it sing as it were. Someone had to use not words, which are always too precise not to be cruel, but simply music. View quote
Marguerite Yourcenar