Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Men
Law
Fragments
Sympathies
Heaven
Participate
Fragment
Universe
Theme
Cosmology
Lives
Absurd
Themes
Means
Search
Astronomy
Wells
Achievement
Governed
Well
Laws
Achievements
Preside
Mean
Since
Heavens
Frigid

More quotes by Marguerite Yourcenar

Image
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.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Translating is writing.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
A being afire with life cannot foresee death in fact, by each of his deeds he denies that death exists.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
A touch of madness is, I think, almost always necessary for constructing a destiny.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Morals are a matter of private agreement decency is of public concern.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Everything is too far away in the past, or mysteriously too close.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
I could say that all my books were conceived by the time I was twenty, although they were not to be written for another thirty or forty years. But perhaps this is true of most writers—the emotional storage is done very early on.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Do not mistake me. I am not yet weak enough to yield to fearful imaginings, which are almost as absurd as illusions of hope, and are certainly harder to bear. If I must deceive myself, I should prefer to stay on the side of confidence, for I shall lose no more there and shall suffer less.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
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
Image
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.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
The world is big … May it please the One who perchance is to expand the human heart to life's full measure.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Cruelty is the luxury of those who have nothing to do, like drugs or racing stables.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Every hour has its immediate duty, its special injunction which dominates all others.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Any truth creates a scandal.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
This morning it occurred to me for the first time that my body, my faithful companion and friend, truer and better known to me than my own soul, may be after all only a sly beast who will end by devouring his master.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
If you love life you also love the past, because it is the present as it has survived in memory. Translation by David Downie
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
No one understands eternity. One simply recognizes its existence.
Marguerite Yourcenar