Les Quotes - page 4

The first romantics were seers without even really realizing it: their soul's education began by accident: abandoned trains still smoking, occasionally taking to the tracks. Lamartine was a seer now and again, but strangling on old forms. Hugo, too pigheaded, certainly saw in his most recent works: Les Misérables is really a poem. I've got Les Chatiments with me; Stella gives some sense of Hugo's vision. Too much Belmontet and Lamennais with their Jehovahs and colonnades, massive crumbling edifices. (Alphonse de Lamartine)
La vie n'est bonne qu'à deux choses : à faire des mathématiques et à les professer. (The only two good things in life are doing mathematics and teaching it.) View quote
Siméon Denis Poisson
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains,-"I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless". View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
We would not (- "On ne saurait", Fr.) permanently change by violence a state of affairs; we can repress (or restrain) resistances for a certain time (or some while), but not attain (result in or lead to) thus a lasting result ("On ne saurait par la violence changer définitivement un état de choses; on peut comprimer les résistances un certain temps, mais non aboutir à un résultat durable.", Fr.) View quote
African Spir
Degas was discussing poetry with Mallarmé; "It isn't ideas I'm short of... I've got too many" [Ce ne sont pas les idées qui me manquent... J'en ai trop], said Degas. "But Degas," replied Mallarmé, "you can't make a poem with ideas. ... You make it with words." [Mais, Degas, ce n'est point avec des idées que l'on fait des vers. . . . C'est avec des mots.]. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé