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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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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
Better
Must
Needs
Suffered
Good
Caused
Necessary
Perhaps
Suffering
Become

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The dog who meets with a good master is the happier of the two.
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Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature.
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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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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.
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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 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.
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Nothing in the whole world is so athirst for beauty as the soul, nor is there anything to which beauty clings so readily.
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At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past.
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The true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind.
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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.
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To disdain today is to prove that yesterday has been misunderstood.
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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.
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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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There is no soul that does not respond to love, for the soul of man is a guest that has gone hungry these centuries back.
Maurice Maeterlinck
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It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.
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All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.
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Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul.
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We can never judge a soul above the high water mark of our own.
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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.
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I count only the hours that are serene.
Maurice Maeterlinck