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
Leaving behind books is even more beautiful — there are far too many children.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Any truth creates a scandal.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Every hour has its immediate duty, its special injunction which dominates all others.
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
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
Translating is writing.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Every invalid is a prisoner.
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
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
Image
Love is a punishment. We are punished for not having been strong enough to remain alone.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Books are not life, only its ashes.
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
Everything turns out to be valuable that one does for one’s self without thought of profit.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
I am not sure that the discovery of love is necessarily more exquisite than the discovery of poetry.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
The landscape of my days appears to be composed, like mountainous regions, of varied materials heaped up pell-mell. There I see my nature, itself composite, made up of equal parts of instinct and training. Here and there protrude the granite peaks of the inevitable, but all about is rubble from the landslips of chance.
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
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
No one understands eternity. One simply recognizes its existence.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
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