Quote

To hold power has always meant to manipulate idiots and circumstances and those circumstances and those idiots, tossed together, bring about those coincidences to which even the greatest men confess they owe most of their fame

Alfred de Vigny

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alfred de Vigny
Age: 66 †
Born: 1797
Born: March 27
Died: 1863
Died: September 17
Diarist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Alfred Victor de Vigny
Alfred Victor
comte de Vigny
Men
Circumstances
Tossed
Hold
Idiots
Bring
Confess
Greatest
Manipulate
Power
Coincidence
Together
Idiot
Even
Meant
Always
Fame
Coincidences

More quotes by Alfred de Vigny

Image
The acts of the human race on the world's stage have doubtless a coherent unity, but the meaning of the vast tragedy enacted will be visible only to the eye of God, until the end, which will reveal it perhaps to the last man.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
An army is a nation within a nation, it is one of the vices of courage.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
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
Alfred de Vigny
Image
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?
Alfred de Vigny
Image
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.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
Poetry is the disease of the brain.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
Every man has seen the wall that limits his mind.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
Fainthearted animals move about in herds. The lion walks alone in the desert. Let the poet always walk thus.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
Oh, I have a habit of letting myself be lectured on the things I know best. I like to see if they are understood in the same way I understand for there are many ways of knowing the same thing
Alfred de Vigny
Image
The events I sought were never as great as I needed them to be.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
The existence of the soldier, next to capital punishment, is the most grievous vestige of barbarism which survives among men.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
Of late years (perhaps as a result of our political changes) art has borrowed from history more than ever.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
Do you not see with your own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction?
Alfred de Vigny
Image
Honour is manly decency. The shame of being found wanting in it means everything to us. Is this, then, the indefinable, the sacred thing?
Alfred de Vigny
Image
A calm despair, without angry convulsions or reproaches directed at heaven, is the essence of wisdom.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
Perform your long and heavy task with energy, treading the path to which Fate has been pleased to call you.
Alfred de Vigny
Image
What is a great life if not a youthful idea executed by a man of mature years.
Alfred de Vigny