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I have come to think that great men are characterized precisely by the extreme position which they take, and that their heroism consists in holding to that extremity throughout their lives.

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
Take
Consists
Great
Extreme
Holding
Men
Extremes
Think
Throughout
Extremity
Thinking
Position
Characterized
Lives
Heroism
Come
Precisely

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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.
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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.
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The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself my first homelands have been books, and to a lesser degree schools.
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Any truth creates a scandal.
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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.
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Every hour has its immediate duty, its special injunction which dominates all others.
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A touch of madness is, I think, almost always necessary for constructing a destiny.
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Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.
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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.
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Every invalid is a prisoner.
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the press is too often a distorting mirror, which deforms the people and events it represents, making them seem bigger or smaller than they really are.
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Books are not life, only its ashes.
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Everything turns out to be valuable that one does for one’s self without thought of profit.
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age means nothing. If anything I feel that I'm still a child: eternity and childhood are my ages.
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It is not difficult to nourish admirable thoughts when the stars are present.
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When two texts, or two assertions, perhaps two ideas, are in contradiction, be ready to reconcile them rather than cancel one by the other regard them as two different facets, or two successive stages, of the same reality, a reality convincingly human just because it is too complex.
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Love is a punishment. We are punished for not having been strong enough to remain alone.
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I have never seasoned a truth with the sauce of a lie in order to digest it more easily
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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.
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Writing is a perpetual choice between a thousand expressions, none of which satisfies me, none of which, above all, satisfies me without the others. Yet I ought to know that only music permits a succession of chords.
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