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I have done what I could do in life, and if I could not do better, I did not deserve it. In vain I have tried to step beyond what bound me.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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Maurice Maeterlinck
Age: 86 †
Born: 1862
Born: August 29
Died: 1949
Died: May 5
Author
Essayist
Librettist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Gent
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
Step
Beyond
Steps
Bound
Better
Bounds
Done
Vain
Life
Acceptance
Deserve
Tried
More quotes by Maurice Maeterlinck
Nothing in the whole world is so athirst for beauty as the soul, nor is there anything to which beauty clings so readily.
Maurice Maeterlinck
To be good we must needs have suffered but perhaps it is necessary to have caused suffering before we can become better.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Wisdom requires no form her beauty must vary, as varies the beauty of flame. She is no motionless goddess, for ever couched on her throne.
Maurice Maeterlinck
It is only in the space that our thoughts and our feelings enclose that our happiness can breathe in freedom.
Maurice Maeterlinck
We can never judge a soul above the high water mark of our own.
Maurice Maeterlinck
The hour of justice does not strike On the dials of this world.
Maurice Maeterlinck
The dog who meets with a good master is the happier of the two.
Maurice Maeterlinck
And on this earth of ours there are but few souls that can withstand the dominion of the soul that has suffered itself to become beautiful.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Happiness is rarely absent it is we that know not of its presence.
Maurice Maeterlinck
We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Physical suffering apart, not a single sorrow exists that can touch us except through our thoughts.
Maurice Maeterlinck
I knew that if I was captured by the Germans I would be shot at once, since I have always been counted as an enemy of Germany because of my play, 'Le Bourgmestre de Stillemonde,' which dealt with the conditions in Belgium during the German Occupation of 1918.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Brave old-flowers! Wall-flowers, Gilly flowers, Stocks! For even as the field-flowers, from which a trifle, a ray of beauty, a drop of perfume, divides them, they have charming names, the softest in the language and each of them, like tiny, art-less ex-votos, or like medals bestowed by the gratitude of men, proudly bears three or four.
Maurice Maeterlinck
It is death that is the guide of our life, and our life has no goal but death.
Maurice Maeterlinck
The dog is the only living being that has found and recognizes an indubitable, tangible and definite god. He knows to whom above him to give himself. He has not to seek for a superior and infinite power.
Maurice Maeterlinck
If you love yourself meanly, childishly, timidly, even so shall you love your neighbor.
Maurice Maeterlinck
The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none at all.
Maurice Maeterlinck
At every crossway on the path that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past. Let us have no fear that the fair towers of former days be sufficiently defended. The least that the most timid among us can do is not to add to the immense dead weight that nature drags along.
Maurice Maeterlinck
The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.
Maurice Maeterlinck
We should tell ourselves once and for all that it is the first duty of the soul to become as happy, complete, independent, and great as lies in its power. To this end we may sacrifice even the passion for sacrifice, for sacrifice never should be the means of ennoblement, but only the sign of being ennobled.
Maurice Maeterlinck