Stéphane Mallarmé Quotes

38 Sourced Quotes

Yes, I know, we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul. So sublime, my friend, that I want to gaze upon matter, fully conscious that it exists, and yet launching itself madly into Dream, despite its knowl edge that Dream has no existence, extolling the Soul and all the divine impressions of that kind which have collected within us from the beginning of time and proclaiming, in the face of the Void which is truth, these glorious lies!

Stéphane Mallarmé
We do not write poems with ideas, but with words.

Stéphane Mallarmé
How, save through obscure
Terrors, imagine more implacable still
And as a suppliant the god who some day will
Receive the gift of your grace! and for whom,
Devoured by anguish, do you keep the unknown
Splendor and mystery of your being?

Stéphane Mallarmé
In a museum in London there is an exhibit called "The Value of Man": a long coffinlike box with lots of compartments where they've put starch—phosphorus—flour—bottles of water and alcohol—and big pieces of gelatin. I am a man like that.

Stéphane Mallarmé
I am alone in my monotonous country,
While all those around me live in the idolatry
Of a mirror reflecting in its depths serene
Herodiade, whose gaze is diamond keen...
O final enchantment! yes, I sense it, I am alone.

Stéphane Mallarmé
The work of pure poetry implies the elocutionary disappearance of the poet, who yields the initiative to words.

Stéphane Mallarmé
I, proud of my rumour, for long I will talk
Of goddesses; and by picturings idolatrous,
From their shades unloose yet more of their girdles:
So when of grapes the clearness I've sucked,
To banish regret by my ruse disavowed,
Laughing, I lift the empty bunch to the sky,
Blowing into its luminous skins and athirst
To be drunk, till the evening I keep looking through.
Oh nymphs, we diverse MEMORIES refill.

Stéphane Mallarmé
Such as into himself at last Eternity has changed him.

Stéphane Mallarmé