Quotes by Maurice Maeterlinck

“It is sad to love and be unloved, but sadder still to be unable to love.”

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

“A thought that is almost beautiful a thought that you speak not, but that you cherish within you at this moment, will irradiate you as though you were a transparent vase.”

“However imperfect our conception of virtue, still let us cling to it; for a moments forgetfulness exposes us to all the malignant forces from without. The simplest lie to myself, buried though it m...”

“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 spiri...”

“When once misfortune enters a house, silence is in vain.”

“Have we, asks Claude de Saint-Martin, the great unknown philosopher, have we advanced one step further on the radiant path of enlightenment, that leads to the simplicity of men? Let us wait in sile...”

“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together ... Speech is too often ... the act of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal ... Speech is...”

“(there is) no other means of escaping from one's consciousness than to deny it, to look upon it as an organic disease of the terrestrial intelligence - a disease which we must endeavor to cure by a...”

“I believe that poems die the moment they are outwardly expressed.”

“We should tell ourselves, once and for all, that it is the first duty of the soul to become as happy, complete, independent, and great as lies in its power. Herein is no egoism, or pride. To become...”

“The angels that dry our eyes bear the form and the features of all we have said and thoughtabove all, of what we have done, prior to the hour of misfortune.”

“To learn to love, one must first learn to see.”

“All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.”

“We possess only the happiness we are able to understand.”

“Remember that happiness is as contagious as gloom. It should be the first duty of those who are happy to let others know of their gladness.”

“Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, can be due to chance, but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.”

“It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.”

“At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past.”

“Unless we close our eyes we are always deceived.”