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Jacques Lusseyran Quotes

Our fate is shaped from within ourselves outward, never from without inward.

Our fate is shaped from within ourselves outward, never from without inward.

Jacques Lusseyran
Fate, Inward
Jacques Lusseyran (2016). “Against the Pollution of the I: On the Gifts of Blindness, the Power of Poetry, and the Urgency of Awareness”, p.29, New World Library

Unhappiness, I saw then, comes to each of us because we think ourselves at the center of the world, because we have the miserable conviction the we alone suffer to the point of unbearable intensity. Unhappiness is always to feel oneself imprisoned in one's own skin, in one's own brain.

Jacques Lusseyran
Thinking, Brain, Suffering
Jacques Lusseyran (2016). “Against the Pollution of the I: On the Gifts of Blindness, the Power of Poetry, and the Urgency of Awareness”, p.143, New World Library

I could no longer afford to be jealous or unfriendly, because, as soon as I was, a bandage came down over my eyes, and I was bound hand and foot and cast aside. All at once a black hole opened, and I was helpless inside it. But when I was happy and serene, approached people with confidence and thought well of them, I was rewarded with light.

Jacques Lusseyran
Jealous, Eye, Light
Jacques Lusseyran (2014). “And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II”, p.15, New World Library

I am certain that children always know more than they are able to tell, and that makes the big difference between them and adults, who, at best, know only a fraction of what they say. The reason is simply that children know everything with their whole beings, while we know it only with our heads.

Jacques Lusseyran
Children, Differences, Adults
Jacques Lusseyran (2014). “And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II”, p.7, New World Library

People often say that blindness sharpens hearing, but I don't think this is so. My ears were hearing no better, but I was making better use of them. Sight is a miraculous instrument offering us all the riches of physical life. But we get nothing in this world without paying for it, and in return for all the benefits that sight brings we are forced to give up others whose existence we don't even suspect. These were the gifts I received in such abundance.

Jacques Lusseyran
Giving Up, Thinking, Sight
Jacques Lusseyran (2014). “And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II”, p.18, New World Library

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