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I am not sure that the discovery of love is necessarily more exquisite than the discovery of poetry.

Marguerite Yourcenar

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Marguerite Yourcenar
Age: 84 †
Born: 1903
Born: June 7
Died: 1987
Died: December 17
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Brussels
Belgium
Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour
Yourcenar
Marguerite Cleenewerck de Crayencour
Marguerite de Crayencour
Sure
Love
Exquisite
Necessarily
Discovery
Poetry

More quotes by Marguerite Yourcenar

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Translating is writing.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Want of passion is, I think, a very striking characteristic of Americans, not unrelated to their predilection for violence. For very few people truly have a passionate desire to achieve, and violence serves as a kind of substitute.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Of all our games, love's play is the only one which threatens to unsettle the soul.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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This city belongs to ghosts, to murderers, to sleepwalkers. Where are you, in what bed, in what dream?
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Cruelty is the luxury of those who have nothing to do, like drugs or racing stables.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Love is a punishment. We are punished for not having been strong enough to remain alone.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Everything turns out to be valuable that one does for one’s self without thought of profit.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Morals are a matter of private agreement decency is of public concern.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Everything that we do affects our fate for better or for worse. The circumstances into which we are born also exert a tremendous influence we come into the world with debits and credits for which we are not responsible already posted to our account: this teaches us humility.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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A being afire with life cannot foresee death in fact, by each of his deeds he denies that death exists.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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A touch of madness is, I think, almost always necessary for constructing a destiny.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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It is not difficult to nourish admirable thoughts when the stars are present.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Everything is too far away in the past, or mysteriously too close.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Since man, fragment of the universe, is governed by the same laws that preside over the heavens, it is by no means absurd to search there above for the themes of our lives, for those frigid sympathies that participate in our achievements as well as our blunderings.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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All happiness is a form of innocence.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Our true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were my books.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Leaving behind books is even more beautiful — there are far too many children.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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Passion such as hers is all consent, asking little in return. I had merely to enter a room where she was to see her face take on that peaceful expression of one who is resting in bed. If I touched her, I had the impression that all the blood in her veins was turning to honey.
Marguerite Yourcenar
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The world is big … May it please the One who perchance is to expand the human heart to life's full measure.
Marguerite Yourcenar