Quote

At every crossroad on the way that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.

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
Spirit
Guard
Past
Progressive
Every
Opposed
Way
Leads
Men
Thousand
Life
Future
Fear
Crossroad
Inspirational
Appointed

More quotes by Maurice Maeterlinck

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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.
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Justice is the very last thing of all wherewith the universe concerns itself. It is equilibrium that absorbs its attention.
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There comes no adventure but wears to our soul the shape of our everyday thoughts.
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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.
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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.
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An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness.
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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.
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All mothers are rich when they love their children. There are no poor mothers, no ugly ones, no old ones. Their love is always the most beautiful of joys.
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Sacrifice may be a flower that virtue will pluck on its road, but it was not to gather this flower that virtue set forth on its travels.
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It is only in the space that our thoughts and our feelings enclose that our happiness can breathe in freedom.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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Physical suffering apart, not a single sorrow exists that can touch us except through our thoughts.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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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
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When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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To be good we must needs have suffered but perhaps it is necessary to have caused suffering before we can become better.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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How strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together ... Speech is too often ... the act of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal ... Speech is of Time, silence is of Eternity ... It is idle to think that, by means of words, any real communication can ever pass from one man to another.
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The dog who meets with a good master is the happier of the two.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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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
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It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.
Maurice Maeterlinck