Marguerite Yourcenar
“It is not difficult to nourish admirable thoughts when the stars are present.”
“All would be transformed if we had the courage to be what we are.”
“The world is big—may it please the One to expand the human heart to life’s full measure.”
“There is more than one kind of wisdom, and all are essential in the world.”
“Nothing is slower than the true birth of a man.”
“The memory of most men is an abandoned cemetery.”
“Every bliss achieved is a masterpiece: the slightest error turns it awry.”
“Passion satisfied has its innocence, almost as fragile as any other.”
“Any law too often subject to infraction is bad; it is the duty of the legislator to repeal or change it.”
“Our civil laws will never be supple enough to fit the immense and changing variety of facts.”
“Human beings betray their worst failings when they marvel that a world ruler is neither indolent, presumptuous, nor cruel.”
“The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself.”
“Leisure moments—he who cannot make way for them does not know how to live.”
“The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself; my first homelands have been books.”
“The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice.”