Alfred de Vigny - STELLO (1856)

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To hold power has always meant to manipulate idiots and circumstances; and those circumstances and those idiots, tossed together, bring about those coincidences to which even the greatest men confess they owe most of their fame.

Alfred de Vigny
The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few sounds.

Alfred de Vigny
The loveliest Muse in the world does not feed her owner; these girls make fine mistresses but terrible wives.

Alfred de Vigny
Oh, I have a habit of letting myself be lectured on the things I know best. I like to see if they are understood in the same way I understand; for there are many ways of knowing the same thing.

Alfred de Vigny
Observe this fact: in the history of mankind, every ruler who has lacked personal greatness has been forced to compensate for the deficiency by setting up the executioner at his right hand like a guardian angel.

Alfred de Vigny
Those intellectuals are our natural enemies; the only kind who are worth anything are the musicians and the dancers: they don't insult anybody with their performances, and they neither sing nor dance politics. So I like them; but don't let me hear a word about the rest.

Alfred de Vigny
Hope is the greatest madness. What can we expect of a world that we enter with the assurance of seeing our fathers and mothers die? A world where, if two beings love each other and give their lives to each other, both can be sure that one will watch the other perish?

Alfred de Vigny
I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words.

Alfred de Vigny