Natalie Clifford Barney Quotes

American writer who hosted a literary salon at her home in Paris (1876-1972)

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Natalie Clifford Barney (31 October 1876 – 2 February 1972) was an American poet, memoirist, and epigrammatist, most of whose life was spent in France. Almost all of her books were written in the language of her adopted country.

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Bientôt ou dans un cycle, ce sera de nouveau son tour de me prouver la qualité de son feu. Je ne lui manquerai pas, elle ne me manquera pas — et tout sera consumé.

... anything difficult to say must be shouted from the rooftops.

I have sometimes lost friends, but friends have never lost me.

If we keep an open mind, too much is likely to fall into it

We know all their gods; they ignore ours. What they call our sins are our gods, and what they call their gods, we name otherwise.

I am beginning to have a healthy dread of possessions, be it of a country, a house, a being or even an idea. If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from within; we are the possession of our possessions. All wars and most loves come from the possessive instinct. Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men: that you may belong to everything and everything be yours inclusive of yourself. Could we, and we can, have the vital necessities for all, we should do away with this cry of class and begin to differentiate between individuals. Individual superiority can alone feed the soul and give back through some materialisation of itself this individualised wealth of being.