Quote

Everything is too far away in the past, or mysteriously too close.

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
Everything
Mysteriously
Close
Away
Past

More quotes by Marguerite Yourcenar

Image
All happiness is a form of innocence.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
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.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
This city belongs to ghosts, to murderers, to sleepwalkers. Where are you, in what bed, in what dream?
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
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
Image
No one understands eternity. One simply recognizes its existence.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
age means nothing. If anything I feel that I'm still a child: eternity and childhood are my ages.
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
Love is a punishment. We are punished for not having been strong enough to remain alone.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Every invalid is a prisoner.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
Translating is writing.
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
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
Books are not life, only its ashes.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
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.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Image
I am not sure that the discovery of love is necessarily more exquisite than the discovery of poetry.
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
Morals are a matter of private agreement decency is of public concern.
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
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
Image
It is not difficult to nourish admirable thoughts when the stars are present.
Marguerite Yourcenar