Marguerite Yourcenar

Quotes

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

   p. 270

2. 

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

   p. 113

3. 

   Our civil laws will never be supple enough to fit the immense and changing variety of facts. Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom.

   p. 113

4. 

   Nothing is slower than the true birth of a man.

   p. 258

5. 

   Every bliss achieved is a masterpiece: the slightest error turns it awry, and it alters with one touch of doubt; any heaviness detracts from its charm, the least stupidity renders it dull.

   p. 164

6. 

   Passion satisfied has its innocence, almost as fragile as any other.

   p. 156

7. 

   The memory of most men is an abandoned cemetery where lie, unsung and unhonored, the dead whom they have ceased to cherish.

   p. 209

8. 

   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.

   p. 97

9. 

   Human beings betray their worst failings when they marvel to find that a world ruler is neither foolishly indolent, presumptuous, nor cruel.

   p. 103

10. 

    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.

    p. 21

11. 

    The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself; my first homelands have been books.

    p. 33

12. 

    Leisure moments: each life well regulated has some such intervals, and he who cannot make way for them does not know how to live.

    p. 43