Alphonse de Lamartine Quotes - Page 4

I am the fellow citizen of every being that thinks; my country is Truth.

Enthusiasm springs from the imagination, and self-sacrifice from the heart. Women are, therefore, more naturally heroic than men. All nations have in their annals some of these miracles of patriotism, of which woman is the instrument in the hands of God.

Too much I've seen, and felt, and lov'd in life, Living I come to seek Lethaean calm; Let me, fair scenes! forget all worldly strife, Oblivion solely is my bosom's balm.

The photographer will never replace the painter; one is a man, the other a machine. Let us compare them no longer. (1848)

The loss of a mother is always keenly felt, even if her health be such as to incapacitate her from taking an active part in the care of the family. She is the sweet rallying-point for affection, obedience, and a thousand tendernesses. Dreary the blank when she is withdrawn!

God - but a word invoked to explain the world.

Eternity is so certain and so terrible that a thousand lives would not suffice to prepare for it.

Ink is the transcript of thought.

Thou makest the man, O Sorrow!--yes, the whole man,--as the crucible gold.

He, who can create, abhors destruction.

...to kill animals for the purpose of feeding on their flesh is one of the most deplorable and shameful infirmities of the human state

I say to this night: "Pass more slowly"; and the dawn will come to dispel the night.

Poetry is the morning dream of great minds.

Chance often gives us that which we should not have presumed to ask.

An artist should have more than two eyes.

The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge, who sees, listens, and decides.

Men are misers, and women prodigal, in affection.

Treason, which begins by being cautious, ends by betraying itself.

At twenty every one is republican.

It is because of the servility of photography that I am fundamentally contemptuous of this chance invention which will never be an art but which plagiarizes nature by means of optics. (1848)

Before this century shall run out, journalism will be the whole press. Mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. Thought will spread abroad with the rapidity of light--instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood at the extremities of the earth.

Hence life, as through a cloud, for me I see Vanish, and to the past's dark shade 'tis chas'd; As a grand image love remains to me-- Sole remnant of a dream, by morn effac'd.

Republicanism and ignorance are in bitter antagonism.

Man, man, is thy brother, and thy father is God.

The People will not allow themselves to be changed into hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignation against their transformers. A day will come when they will see that they are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, when they are robbed of their souls and of God, both their titles to liberty are stolen from them.