Marguerite Yourcenar Quotes

- Vous êtes plus pessimiste qu'autrefois ?
- Pessimisme et optimisme, encore deux mots que je récuse. Il s'agit d'avoir les yeux ouverts. Le médecin qui analyse le sang et les selles d'un malade, mesure sa fièvre et prend sa tension, n'est ni optimiste ni pessimiste : il fait de son mieux à partir de ce qui est. Mais, si l'on peut employer ce misérable mot, je me sens pessimiste quand je constate combien la masse humaine a peu changé depuis des millénaires. Les plus grands réformateurs se sont généralement heurtés à cette quasi-impossibilité de changer l'homme, et leur leçon s'est généralement perdue après eux. (p.240)

Il m'importait assez peu que l'accord obtenu fût extérieur, imposé du dehors, probablement temporaire : je savais que le bien comme le mal est affaire de routine, que le temporaire se prolonge, que l'extérieur s'infiltre au-dedans, et que le masque, à la longue, devient visage.

quand je vois combien peu de gens lisent L'Iliade d'Homère, je prends plus gaiement mon parti d'être peu lu.
(La conversation à Innsbruck)

You could fall suddenly into the void the dead go to: I would be comforted if you would bequeath me your hands. Only your hands would continue to exist, detached from you, unexplainable like those of marble gods turned into the dust and the limestone of their own tomb. They would survive your actions, the wretched bodies they caressed. They would no longer serve as intermediaries between you and things: they themselves would be changed into things. Innocent again now, since you would no longer be there to turn them into your accomplices, sad like greyhounds without masters, disconcerted like archangels to whom no god gives orders, your useless hands would rest on the lap of darkness. Your open hands incapable of giving or taking the slightest joy would have let me slump like a broken doll. I kiss the wrists of these indifferent hands you will no longer pull away from mine: I stroke the blue artery, the blood column that once spurted continuously like a fountain from the ground of your heart. With little sobs of contentment, I rest my head like a child between these palms filled with the stars, the crosses, the precipices of my previous fate.

-¿Vuestra Reverencia hace de mí un luterano? -preguntó el filósofo con débil sonrisa.
-No, amigo mío, temo que no tengáis bastante fe para ser un hereje.

Any happiness is a masterpiece.

L'ipocrisia degli uomini? Non esageriamola. La maggior parte pensa troppo poco per pensare doppio.

Era demasiado jovem para ter ideia que de que a existência não é feita de arrebatamentos súbitos e de obstinada constância, mas de compromissos e de esquecimentos.

Il nostro errore più grave è quello di cercare di destare in ciascuno proprio quelle qualità che non possiede, trascurando di coltivare quelle che ha.

(l'amour)... un envahissement de la chair par l'esprit

Quizás comprendiste ya que los fantasmas son invisibles porque los llevamos dentro.

In alchemical treatises, the formula L'Oeuvre au Noir … designates what is said to be the most difficult phase of the alchemist's process, the separation and dissolution of substance. It is still not clear whether the term applied to daring experiments on matter itself, or whether it was understood to symbolize trials of the mind in discarding all forms of routine and prejudice. Doubtless it signified one or the other meaning alternately, or perhaps both at the same time.

The skirmishes with the theologians had had their charm, but he knew well that no lasting accord exists between those who seek, ponder, and dissect and pride themselves on being capable of thinking tomorrow other than they do today, and those who accept the Faith, or declare that they do, and oblige their fellow men to do the same, on pain of death.

il [Zénon] savait fort bien qu'il n'existe aucun accommodement durable entre ceux qui cherchent, pèsent, dissèquent, et s'honorent d'être capables de penser demain autrement qu'aujourd'hui, et ceux qui croient ou affirment croire, et obligent sous peine de mort leurs semblables à en faire autant.

At this period of his existence, meat and blood, entrails, and all that had ever lived and breathed disgusted him as food, for an animal dies in pain just as man does, and it repelled him to be digesting death's agony.