George Sand Quotes

"A hundred times in life," she declares, "the good that one does seems to serve no immediate purpose; yet it maintains in one way and another the tradition of well wishing and well doing, without which all would perish."

"[On Chopin's Preludes:]

"His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. His composition of that night was surely filled with raindrops, resounding clearly on the tiles of the Charterhouse, but it had been transformed in his imagination and in his song into tears falling upon his heart from the sky. ... The gift of Chopin is [the expression of] the deepest and fullest feelings and emotions that have ever existed. He made a single instrument speak a language of infinity. He could often sum up, in ten lines that a child could play, poems of a boundless exaltation, dramas of unequalled power.

Je n'appelle pas priere un choix et un arrangement de paroles lancees vers le ciel, mais un entretien de la pensee avec l'ideal de lumiere et de perfections infinies.

J'ai peine à croire qu'en perdant ceux qu'on aime on conserve son âme entière.

Вы слишком требовательны, это не приносит счастья в жизни. Вы что ж, хотите, чтобы человек так вот сразу понял свой долг и тут же исполнил его?

"Immodest creature, you do not want a woman who will accept your faults, you want the one who pretends you are faultless – one who will caress the hand that strikes her and kiss the lips that lie to her."

(Letter, 17 June 1837)

We have now all sorts of good reasons for accepting life, quite as good as those that had made us reject it the previous week.

j'ai bien senti le beau dans le simple,

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

(Il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé.)

A quelque chose malheur est bon, pour qui sait réfléchir.

"Ce n'est pas la première fois que je remarque combien, en France particulièrement, les mots ont plus d’empire que les idées."

("It's not the first time I've noticed how much more power words have than ideas, particularly in France.")

Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.

But it’s different with a woman. Her work in the house is to keep not to get.

Life is a long ache which rarely sleeps and can never be cured.

Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.