Quote

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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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
Never
Power
Passion
Ennoblement
May
Lying
Ennobled
Soul
Happiness
Sign
Firsts
Happy
Complete
First
Means
Independent
Mean
Tell
Sacrifice
Great
Ends
Lies
Even
Become
Duty

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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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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.
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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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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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The hour of justice does not strike On the dials of this world.
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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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We can never judge a soul above the high water mark of our own.
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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.
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I count only the hours that are serene.
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There comes no adventure but wears to our soul the shape of our everyday thoughts.
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The dog who meets with a good master is the happier of the two.
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No living creature, not even man, has achieved, in the centre of his sphere, what the bee has achieved in her own: and were some one from another world to descend and ask of the earth the most perfect creation of the logic of life, we should needs have to offer the humble comb of honey.
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Happiness is rarely absent it is we that know not of its presence.
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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.
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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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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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We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them.
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How strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words.
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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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To be good we must needs have suffered but perhaps it is necessary to have caused suffering before we can become better.
Maurice Maeterlinck