Maurice Maeterlinck Quotes

It is not my purpose here to discuss the question of vegetarianism, or to meet the objections that may be urged against it; though it must be admitted that of these objections not one can withstand a loyal and scrupulous inquiry. I, for my part, can affirm that those whom I have known to submit themselves to this regimen have found its result to be improved or restored health, marked addition of strength, and the acquisition by the mind of a clearness, brightness, well-being, such as might follow the release from some secular, loathsome, detestable dungeon.

El dolor es el alimento esencial del amor; cualquier amor que no se haya nutrido de un poco de dolor puro, muere

Our lives must be spent seeking our God, for God hides; but His artifices, once they be known, seem so simple and smiling! From that moment, the merest nothing reveals His presence, and the greatness of our life depends on so little.

We suffer but little from suffering itself; but from the manner wherein we accept it overwhelming sorrow may spring.

We are wrong in believing that it comes from without. For indeed we create it within us, out of our very substance.

What are we to do now? Must we hate the enemy to the end of time? The burden of hatred is the heaviest that man can bear upon this earth; and we should faint under the weight of it. On the other hand, we do not wish once more to be the dupes and victims of confidence and love.

Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature.

Treasures have perished that were numbered among the noblest and dearest possessions of mankind; monuments have disappeared which nothing can replace; and the half of a nation, among all nations the most attached to its old simple habits, its humble homes, is at present wandering along the roads of Europe. Thousands of innocent people have been massacred; and of those who remain nearly all are doomed to poverty and hunger.

But how much care and study are needed to succeed in fulfilling this duty! And how complicated it has become since the days of the silent caverns and the great deserted lakes! It was all so simple, then, so easy and so clear. The lonely hollow opened upon the side of the hill, and all that approached, all that moved on the horizon of the plains or woods, was the unmistakable enemy.... But to-day you can no longer tell.... You have to acquaint yourself with a civilization of which you disapprove, to appear to understand a thousand incomprehensible things.... Thus, it seems evident that henceforth the whole world no longer belongs to the master, that his property conforms to unintelligible limits....

As gold and silver are weighed in pure water, so does the soul test its weight in silence, and the words that we let fall have no meaning apart from the silence that wraps them round.

he who takes upon himself to write pledges himself to say nothing that can derogate from the respect and love which we owe to all men. I have had to utter these words; and I am as much surprised as saddened at what I have been constrained to say by the force of events and of truth. I loved Germany and numbered friends there, who now, dead or living, are alike dead to me. I thought her great and upright and generous; and to me she was ever kindly and hospitable. But there are crimes that obliterate the past and close the future. In rejecting hatred I should have shown myself a traitor to love.

"Sobre las vallisnerias: "(...), para elevarse hasta la felicidad, rompen deliberadamente el lazo que los une a la existencia. Se arrancan de su pedúnculo, y con un incomparable impulso, entre perlas de alegría, sus pétalos van a romper la superficie del agua. Heridos de muerte, pero radiantes y libres, flotan un momento al lado de sus indolentes prometidas; se verifica la unión, después de lo cual los sacrificios van a perecer a merced de la corriente, mientras que la esposa ya madre cierra su corola en que vive su último soplo, arrolla su espiral y vuelve a bajar a las profundidades para madurar en ellas el fruto del beso heroico

Never mind... Don't cry... I will catch him again... [Stepping to the front of the stage and addressing the audience.] If any of you should find him, would you be so very kind as to give him back to us?... We need him for our happiness, later on...

Of what avail are my loftiest thoughts if I have ceased to exist?” there are some will ask; to whom others, it may be, will answer, “What becomes of myself if all that I love in my heart and my spirit must die, that my life may be saved?” And are not almost all the morals, and heroism, and virtue of man summed up in that single choice?

برای چه توقع دارید كه خیالات، تصورات، احساسات، اقدامات و به طور خلاصه زندگی ما آزاد باشد و حال آنكه به چشم خود می بینیم كهكشانهای بزرگ كه منظومه خورشیدی ما در برابر آنها هیچ است، در حركات خود آزاد نیستند و مجبور شده اند كه خط سیر ویژه ای را پیموده و از قوانین خاصی پیروی كنند

Somos de tal naturaleza que nada nos lleva tan lejos y tan alto como los impulsos de nuestros errores