Marguerite Yourcenar Quotes

61 Sourced Quotes

A touch of madness is, I think, almost always necessary for constructing a destiny.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Few bipeds, from Adam's time down, have been worthy of the name of man.

Marguerite Yourcenar
One must not fear the words anymore when one consented to the things.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Do not mistake me. I am not yet weak enough to yield to fearful imaginings, which are almost as absurd as illusions of hope, and are certainly harder to bear. If I must deceive myself, I should prefer to stay on the side of confidence, for I shall lose no more there and shall suffer less.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Overhead shone the great star of the constellation of Lyra, destined to be the polar star for men who will live tens of thousands of years after we have ceased to be.

Marguerite Yourcenar
In alchemical treatises, the formula L'Oeuvre au Noir … designates what is said to be the most difficult phase of the alchemist's process, the separation and dissolution of substance. It is still not clear whether the term applied to daring experiments on matter itself, or whether it was understood to symbolize trials of the mind in discarding all forms of routine and prejudice. Doubtless it signified one or the other meaning alternately, or perhaps both at the same time.

Marguerite Yourcenar
A being afire with life cannot foresee death; in fact, by each of his deeds he denies that death exists.

Marguerite Yourcenar
I think still that someone wiser than I might well have remained happy till his death.

Marguerite Yourcenar
In the evenings the art of building gave way to that of music, which is architecture, too, though invisible.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Every life is punctuated by deaths and departures, and each one causes great suffering that it is better to endure rather than forgo the pleasure of having known the person who has passed away. Somehow our world rebuilds itself after every death, and in any case we know that none of us will last forever. So you might say that life and death lead us by the hand, firmly but tenderly.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Nothing is slower than the true birth of a man.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Any law too often subject to infraction is bad; it is the duty of the legislator to repeal or change it.

Marguerite Yourcenar
There is more than one kind of wisdom, and all are essential in the world; it is not bad that they should alternate.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Morals are a matter of private agreement; decency is of public concern.

Marguerite Yourcenar
The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to appreciate bodily motions.

Marguerite Yourcenar
I knew that good like bad becomes a routine, that the temporary tends to endure, that what is external permeates to the inside, and that the mask, given time, comes to be the face itself.

Marguerite Yourcenar
The unfortunate thing is that, because wishes sometimes come true, the agony of hoping is perpetuated.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Beyond this village, other villages; beyond this abbey, other abbeys; and after the fortress, more fortresses still. And each of these castles of stone and each wooden hut has its structure of fixed ideas or flimsy, ill-based opinions superposed above it within which fools stay immured, but the wise find apertures for escape.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Life was to me like a horse to whose motions one yields, but only after having trained the animal to the utmost.

Marguerite Yourcenar
Everything that we do affects our fate for better or for worse. The circumstances into which we are born also exert a tremendous influence; we come into the world with debits and credits for which we are not responsible already posted to our account: this teaches us humility.

Marguerite Yourcenar